Lines of Life is a CD produced out of a deep collaboration between German baritone Benjamin Appl and Hungarian composer György Kurtág.  It’s a mixture of works by Schubert and Kurtág (with one song by Brahms at the end).  It centers on Kurtág’s Hölderlin-Gesänge Op.35a but there are other Kurtág works on the disk too,  Most of these are sung a capella but there are four settings of texts by Ulrike Schuster that have piano accompaniment (Pierre-Laurent Aimard).  The Schubert songs feature James Baillieu on piano except for the last one, and the Brahms, where Kurtág himself accompanies. Continue reading →