Happily, as a teenager, I learned the texts of many German lieder, so I can now sit back and listen to the music without having to simultaneously read a translation. Yesterday evening I really enjoyed listening again to Schumann's Liederkreis Opus 39. Schumann is not normally one of my preferred composers, and our paths rarely meet. But the Opus 39, plus the Dichterliebe (plus Schubert's Winterreise) were the staple diet of my teenage years and I still love those lieder cycles very much.

Yesterday's recording by Werner Güra (with Jan Schultsz, piano) was less than ideal. The voice is balanced back from the piano; not good. And Güra's diction and articulation are also less than ideal, with a result that many of the words are inaudible, especially in soft passages. I have three other Liederkreis recordings (including Fischer-Dieskau from the 1950s, the recording with which I grew up). But maybe I'd better be in the market for a new version (I also have Bostridge and Partridge, but German lieder really need native singers -- as do French or Russian).