Robert Schumann’s fairy-tale idyll Der Rose Pilgerfahrt (1851) was a regular part of the repertoire of singing societies well into the first third of the 20th century. The fact that today it has practically disappeared from concert life has frequently been blamed on the sentimental, prevailing romantic taste in connection with the libretto by Moritz Horn, which combined the typically romantic themes (redemption, the incursion of the fantastic into the world of reality) with Biedermeier ideals (the intact world of village life, domestic motherhood) which in the 20th century quickly went out of fashion. However, Schumann’s musical transposition shows his experimental and always innovative confrontation with the genre of the oratorio: he plays adroitly, for example, with the forms of the recitative, arioso and folk song, which alternate rapidly within a short space of time. The present recording with Christoph Prégardien in the title role is based on the original version with piano accompaniment, which Schumann himself preferred: it was first performed at a house concert at Schumann’s private residence in Düsseldorf in 1851.
