Zigeunerlieder (songs & duets)

"Fink and Kühmeier sing [the Moravian duets] with great verve, avoiding the pitfalls of sentimentality and folksy cuteness that can so easily creep into this music. ...Kühmeier gives a big, passionate performance of the Op 55 Gypsy Songs, while Fink tackles the austere Biblical Songs, written while Dvořák was homesick in the US. They suit her dark tone admirably" (Guardian)

"Encouraged by Christoph Berner's zesty, colourful accompaniments, Genia Kuhmeier and Bernarda Fink give thoroughly delightful performances, combining eager characterisation...with a crucial sense of spontaneous enjoyment...Kuhmeier catches both the flaring intensity and the nostalgic tenderness of the Gypsy Songs...[Fink] reveals a more impassioned temperament than I had previously suspected." Gramophone Magazine, July 2012

"What a lovely performance [Fink] gives. Almost all the songs are slow and with a less sensitive interpreter than Fink they can seem dull at times, but not here: calm, soothing, reverential, delicate but not dull...Delights a-plenty come in Moravian Duets, whatever the mood, showing how well two female voices can blend." International Record Review, June 2012

In 2004 Bernarda Fink released a recording of Dvorák songs that was awarded critical plaudits internationally. Now, eight years later, she returns to the composer, in the company of young soprano Genia Kühmeier, to sing 13 of the Moravian Duets which brought the young musician fame far beyond his homeland. The other two cycles, for solo voice, round out the portrait of a Dvorák still attached to musical traditions, whether sacred (Biblical Songs) or secular (Gypsy Melodies).