Fatma Said explores German lieder in new album

Soprano Fatma Said has announced the release of her latest album focusing on German lieder. In a departure from the genre-bending themes of her two previous albums, El Nour and Kaleidoscope, Lieder will focus solely on German-language songs of the Romantic era.

Said’s new album is released on Warner Classics, and sees the Egyptian soprano depart from lieder’s conventional one singer and one pianist format, with new harp and string quartet arrangements accompanying the soprano. Said also welcomes collaborators from across the classical sphere, including pianists Malcolm Martineau, Joseph Middleton and Yonatan Cohen, harpist Anneleen Lenaerts, clarinettist Sabine Meyer and baritone Huw Montague Rendall. She also partners with string quartet Quatuor Arod for a recording of Brahms’ Ophelia-Lieder in an arrangement by the composer Aribert Reimann, who died in March 2024.

Said commented: ‘The artists I sing with in lieder are friends every bit as much as colleagues, as it’s together as companions that we explore this wonderful rich world. Many of the outstandingly special instrumentalists and singers who participated with me are friends of mine, and the ones I didn’t know before became my friends as the recording sessions progressed.’   

Having gained an appreciation of the German language while attending German-speaking schools in her native Cairo, Said became a student at the Hanns Eisler Conservatory in Berlin. In Lieder, she reunites with male-voice ensemble Walhalla zum Seidlwirt, whose members were students alongside her in Berlin.

Said recalled: ‘Ever since my time at the German school in Cairo, the joy of singing this genre has been central to my musical life. I am very passionate about lieder, this wonderful combination of great German poetry and genius composers like Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. My priority was to convey the characterisation of the words most of all. Differentiating between diverse kinds of expressive worlds is for me what lieder-singing is all about.’

The album features some of the best-loved lieder, such as Schubert’s Ständchen from Schwanengesang, Schumann’s Widmung, and Brahms’ Wie Melodien zieht es mir alongside less familiar repertoire, all seen in a new light thanks to Said’s unconventional collaborations and new accompaniments.