Gérard Souzay/Alfred Cortot "Dichterliebe" Robert Schumann 

Because Gérard Souzay was a baritone! Lieder with piano accompaniment can be traditionally transposed to any key! Most of them (all Schubert, Schumann, Brahms etc) are even originally published to at least 3 different keys according to the voices.

sirdicaudore Yes. Of course. I didn’t think a baritone would need a transposed score since there are optional notes and the tenor range would’ve easily managed by a baritone. If it has been a bass voice I would have understood why it was transposed down Also the voice was very tenor-like in quality. My mistake.

@@nickdryad I think the choice of the right key (when there IS a choice, of course) has to do with expression, feeling, colors and phrasing. Where a singer can achieve better what he has in his mind and heart. I think Souzay does a very sensitive musical work here supported of course by Cortot's magical sound palette.

The original keys are all academic now, bc tuning is so different today from what it was when Schumann was composing. And it isn’t the high note for each song which determines what key to get….the important consideration is the tessatura, or where the majority of the song lies, which is something people can look up if they like. Mezzo sopranos often have similar ranges to sopranos, for example, but the determining elements are where each goes into “head” voice (the passagio) and the color of each voice. All German lieder in scores can be found for high voice (soprano/tenor) and low voice (alto/baritone), bot obviously not “Dichterliebe,” which is written for male voices.

@@nickdryad I think a dilemma with this cycle is also that, the keys are very sequencial so if you transpose one, you should transpose all. I noticed for instance that with Winterreise the is a lot of random transposing, which makes me wonder how Schubert thought about the more and less smooth tonal transitions form one song to the next. I sang Winterreise as a Bass-Baritone, and transposed everything the same distance, which resulted in some intersting surprises. As for basses singing Dichterliebe, check out Hans Hotter, he is a whole major third below this Souzay recording. Panzera (recommended!) who is also accompanied by Cortot, sings in the same key as Souzay, though his voice is much lighter, and judging by his recording of Pelleas, he could have sung it higher for sure.