Rachel Fenlon is a very rare, perhaps unique, talent.  She’s the only Lieder singer I know who accompanies herself on the piano.  I saw her perform live in Toronto back in 2018.  It appears she spent lockdown isolated in a forest near Berlin studying Winterreise (as opposed to be eaten by goblins or kidnapped by elf kings) which she has now recorded.  Many people would consider Winterreise as one of the epic challenges of the Lieder repertoire.  It’s an hour and a quarter of songs that cover pretty much the whole technical and emotional range of Schubert’s Lieder.  One might say the Everest of Lieder singing.  To perform it self accompanied is kind of the equivalent of climbing solo without oxygen instead of with a bunch of mates and Sherpas to carry the gear.  By that token perhaps we should consider Rachel the Reinhold Messner of Lieder singers!

So how is the performance?  It’s good.  Rachel sings with feeling and a real sense for the text and she’s an excellent pianist.  Just about every baritone of note, plus quite a few other voice types, have recorded Winterreise so comparisons are a bit pointless.  This one stands on its own merits.  I’m still searching for what it is that makes this way of doing things different.  It feels that way but I can’t put my finger on it.  And, for Toronto folks, if you want to see Rachel live she’s performing at the Jane Mallett Theatre on February 11th.

The album is available as a physical CD and digitally in up to 96kHz/24bit format.  I listened to standard res digital.  There’s a digital booklet but I haven’t seen it.

Catalogue information: Orchid Classics ORC100343