Swiss mezzo-soprano Leila Pfister studied in Zurich and Bern as well as in Hartmut Höll’s master class for Lied duo and in master courses with Pierre Boulez, Christoph Prégardien, Irwin Gage and Brigitte Fassbaender. She is currently a member of the Aachen Opera ensemble. She is particularly interested in the music of the 20th and 21st century as well as the romantic Lied. Her dance and theatre studies have made her an exceptionally versatile artist who can also be seen and heard in many types of theatrical productions.

On this CD, accompanied by Judit Polgar, with whom she has worked for many years, she interprets songs that mark the change to the modern musical age. Both Schoenberg’s George-arrangements as well as Berg’s Lieder op. 2 are on the threshold to the new
aesthetics of atonality and use the avant-garde lyrics of their time as the motor of a new musical language. Honegger’s “Quatre Chansons” reflect the phase of reorientation during western music during World War II.

Old and new, traditional and exotic serve as inspiration for a thoroughly heterogeneous cycle. Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis were written based on texts of poet and bohemian Pierre Louÿs. With their sketchy, quasi-improvisatory musical gestures, these songs are distinctly different from late romantic art songs.