Robert Schumann - Das Paradies und die Peri (Jordi Savall)

Information

Composer: Robert Schumann

• Das Paradies und die Peri, Op. 50

Lina Johnson; Marianne Beate Kielland; Kieran Carrel

Johanna Rosa Falkinger; Manuel Walser

Ferran Mitjans; Nicolas Brooymans

La Capella Nacional de Catalunya

Le Concert des Nations

Jordi Savall, conductor

Date: 2026

Label: Alia Vox

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Review

Robert Schumann’s ‘oratorio for happy people, not for the chapel’ (his own description) was the work that sealed his international reputation. Adapted from Thomas Moore’s perfumed Eastern epic Lalla Rookh, the text’s mingled exoticism, sentimentality and moral piety chimed perfectly with contemporary taste. Within a decade of its triumphant Leipzig premiere in December 1843 it had travelled as far as New York and Cape Town. A century later Goebbels hijacked Das Paradies und die Peri as Aryan propaganda. After decades of virtual neglect this most mellifluous and Mendelssohnian of Schumann’s large-scale works has made something of a comeback, not least through the fine recordings by John Eliot Gardiner and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

This superbly recorded new version from Jordi Savall gives both Gardiner and Harnoncourt a run for their money. The alert, youthful-sounding Catalan choir match their British and Viennese counterparts all the way in firmness and range of tone, while the period instruments of Le Concert des Nations make the most of Schumann’s delicately imagined instrumental colours. If Gardiner has the edge in the shimmering lightness of the chorus of the Nile spirits – Schumannised Mendelssohn – Savall has a natural feeling for pacing and atmosphere (say, in the rapt, mystical finale of Part 2), and deals sympathetically with Schumann’s potentially square rhythmic structures. The climactic chorus of Part 1, with its whiff of Handel, looks rather academic on the page but here comes to jubilant life. Gardiner is comparably exultant here, Harnoncourt rather more dutiful.

Your final choice will probably be determined by the soloists. In the central role of the Peri – the child of a fallen angel and a mortal who seeks redemption through compassion – Norwegian soprano Lina Johnson matches Gardiner’s Barbara Bonney in ethereal beauty and surpasses her in depth of tone (Bonney’s low notes can disappear) and dramatic involvement. As the Peri is finally admitted to Paradise, Johnson thrillingly exploits the blade within her lyric soprano, then ascends to the stratosphere with no loss of sweetness. Hers is a lovely performance that outshines even Harnoncourt’s Dorothea Röschmann in vocal allure and engagement with the text.

As the quasi-narrator (Schumann’s secular take on the Passion’s Evangelist), tenor Kieran Carrel rivals Gardiner’s Christoph Prégardien in lyrical tenderness and care for words. The young baritone Manuel Walser makes his mark in Schumann’s evocatively scored depiction of the Syrian sunset (‘Jetzt sank des Abends gold’ner Schein’), where Savall chooses a more natural, flowing tempo than Gardiner. On the downside, mezzo Marianne Beate Kielland’s rather hooty Angel is not a patch on Bernarda Fink’s beautiful, inward performance for both Gardiner and Harnoncourt. If my preference still lies, just, with Gardiner, above all for the consistency of his cast, this new recording is as vividly conducted and in Lina Johnson features the finest Peri on disc.

— Richard Wigmore

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Robert Schumann (8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856) was a German composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era, and left an array of acclaimed music in virtually all the forms then known. Schumann's published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed works for piano and orchestra; many Lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. Schumann suffered from a lifelong mental disorder, and died in 1856 without having recovered from his illness.

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Jordi Savall (born 1 August 1941) is a Spanish conductor, composer, and viol player. Following studies in Barcelona, Belgium and Switzerland, he co-founded several pivotal ensembles, including Hespèrion XXI, La Capella Nacional de Catalunya and Le Concert des Nations. In 1996, Savall established the Alia Vox record label, producing over 200 albums distinguished by multilingual research, rich visual presentations and cross-cultural collaborations spanning Western classical and global musical traditions. He won a Grammy in 2011 and was named French Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 2013, among other awards and honors.

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