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Darkness

Thilo Dahlmann, Hedayet Djeddikar

Label: Challenge Classics
Catalogue number: CC 720029
EAN / barcode: 0608917200294
Release date: 19 March 2026

Darkness explores the symbolic depth of the bass and baritone voice as a vessel for humanity's most profound questions. Across works by Schumann, Wolf, Strauss, Martin and Brahms, the album traces a wide emotional and spiritual landscape shaped by themes of death, transience, loneliness, melancholy and, ultimately, transcendence. The programme opens with Schumann's Requiem, added as a tribute to Nikolaus Lenau and placed at the beginning as a motto: a union of heaviness, longing and gentle, affirmative melancholy. From there, the journey unfolds through composers often writing at pivotal or final stages of their lives. Wolf's Michelangelo Songs, composed shortly before his mental collapse, meditate on love, devotion and artistic melancholy; Strauss's dark-hued songs reflect retreat, solitude and a wistful dissolution into nature; and Frank Martin's Six Monologues from Jedermann plunge into the raw confrontation with death, charting a moral and spiritual transformation from terror to humility and faith. Together, these works reveal darkness not as mere despair, but as a space in which existential truth is sought. Yet this album is not confined to shadow alone. In both Wolf and Brahms, the selected works bear witness to late creative phases in which despair is counterbalanced by reconciliation. Brahms's Vier ernste Gesänge, written in anticipation of loss and drawing on biblical texts, move from stark reflections on mortality toward a final affirmation of love as the greatest human force, closing the circle begun with Schumann's Requiem. Throughout the programme, sorrow is repeatedly transformed into acceptance, and fear into insight, illuminated by what the liner notes describe as a "gentle compositional light." Darkness thus becomes a deeply human meditation: an artistic passage through emotional abysses toward consolation, spiritual clarity and an enduring sense of love that transcends life and death.

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Tracklist

01 Sechs Lieder von Lenau und Requiem, Op. 90: VII. Requiem 03:32
02 Drei Gedichte von Michelangelo: I. Wohl denk ich oft an mein vergangnes Leben 02:00
03 Drei Gedichte von Michelangelo: II. Alles endet, was entstehet 03:53
04 Drei Gedichte von Michelangelo: III. Fühlt meine Seele das ersehnte Licht 03:57
05 Zwei Gesänge, Op. 51: I. Das Tal 07:14
06 Zwei Gesänge, Op. 51: II. Der Einsame 03:19
07 Sechs Monologe aus Jedermann: I. Ist als zu End das Freudenmahl 04:09
08 Sechs Monologe aus Jedermann: II. Ach Gott, wie graust mir vor dem Tod 04:30
09 Sechs Monologe aus Jedermann: III. Ist als wenn eins gerufen hätt 02:37
10 Sechs Monologe aus Jedermann: IV. So wollt ich ganz zernichtet sein 02:29
11 Sechs Monologe aus Jedermann: V. Ja! ich glaub: solches hat er vollbracht 02:38
12 Sechs Monologe aus Jedermann: VI. O ewiger Gott! o göttliches Gesicht! 04:02
13 Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121: I. Denn es gehet dem Menschen. Andante 04:22
14 Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121: II. Ich wandte mich und sahe an alle. Andante 03:48
15 Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121: III. O Tod, wie bitter bist du. 03:37
16 Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121: IV. Wenn ich mit Menschen und mit Engelszungen redete 04:46