Songs and melodies

"A delightfully unusual collection of songs finds Otter on top form, and in some enchantingly different musical combinations."
Recording of the Month. Gramophone Magazine Sept 2001

***** Five Stars (Pick of the Month) BBC Music Magazine (Sept 2001)
"The Swedish mezzo here offers an intriguing foray into the byways of the Romantic song repertoire. It is hard to imagine these songs being more delightfully sung or characterised than they are here."

Critic's Choice - the Best CDs of 2001 (BBC Music Magazine)

Anne Sofie von Otter's versatility can readily be seen in her latest endeavor: For the Stars. Remarkably, she is able to cross boundaries and experience different styles of music without losing focus of the qualities that make her the accomplished artist she is today: her intelligent command of voice combined with an enticing musical artistry.

Anne Sofie is now presenting a collection of rare Lieder by Beethoven, Meyerbeer and Spohr. Beethoven was the first to experiment with the formal idea of the Romantic song cycle. Meyerbeer strove to combine Italian, German and French song styles to create a unified whole. Spohr, finally, broadened the expressive range of German song by using new combinations of instruments, thereby creating a new spectrum of sonorities. Whereas a small number of Beethoven's lieder quickly became popular and have remained so to this day, Meyerbeer's and Spohr's songs have been unjustly neglected.