“… An extremely fine performance, then, and one that rightly reaches its apogee in the final triptych of songs reflecting on Mary’s death. Once you’ve heard Banse and Helchen in the ecstatic final bars of ‘Vom Tode Maria III’, you’ll want, like me, to go back to the beginning and start all over again.”

“This song cycle traces the story of Mary from birth to death. Juliane Banse, despite a slight edge to her voice, gets to grips with every word of Rilke’s poetry.” ****

“A wonderful performance of one of the most important works of the 1920s.”

Album of the Week

“Rilke’s cycle of poems, The Life of Mary, was set by Hindemith in 1922-23. It is one of the most substantial song collections since Schubert’s Winterreise or Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and one of the most significant 20th-century contributions to the genre. On disc it hasn’t exactly been neglected … but new recordings are rare enough for Banse’s disc to be welcome, especially for the crucial contribution of her fine pianist, Helmchen… Banse’s timbre is occasionally more strident than that of Isokoski or Janowitz, but her identification with Rilke’s text is complete and compelling.”