Complexity & beauty: soprano Paula Sides & pianist Sergey Rybin explore songs on the cusp of Modernism & Romanticism in Of Love & Transience

Of Love & Transience: Berg, Ullmann, Korngold, Strauss; Paula Sides, Sergey Rybin; VOCES8 Records
Reviewed 2 November 2026

Viktor Ullmann’s settings of Elizabeth Barrett Browning translated by Rilke provide the powerful centrepiece in a recital that explores songs on the cusp of Modernism and Romanticism with performances that mine both the songs complexity and beauty

It’s not obvious that the early 20th century would provide such richness in the song repertoire, particularly in the Austro-German tradition. Yet song-writing seems to have constantly drawn composers and exploring those on the cusp of modernism and romanticism can prove richly rewarding.

On this new disc from soprano Paula Sides and pianist Sergey Rybin, Of Love and Transience on the VOCES8 Records, they explore the songs of Alban Berg and Richard Strauss alongside those of Viktor Ullmann and Erich Korngold. The recital is bookended by Berg’s Seven Early Songs and Strauss’s Four Last Songs, but the lesser-known gems by Ullmann and Korngold prove to be equally rewarding.

Berg’s Seven Early Songs date from 1905-1908 and reflect a fascinating synthesis between his early late-Romantic style and the rigour of his work with Arnold Schoenberg. Whilst the do exist in orchestral versions, the composer wrote them initially for voice and piano. In all seven, what draws both listeners and singers is the expressive lyricism of the vocal lines, soaring through and over the complex late-Romantic harmonies.

In Nacht (Night), Rybin’s piano creates an evocative nightscape over which Sides’ voice soars with surprising strength. She combines firmness of line with richness of tone along with an ease that disguises the complexity of this music. And despite the tessitura, she is surprisingly successful at getting the words over! Schilflied (Song amid the reeds) proves to be remarkably intimate, the poet confiding in us, whilst in Die Nachtigall (The nightingale), perhaps the best-known song in the group, Sides really revels in the sheer gorgeousness of the melody, yet neither she nor Rybin forgets that there is an expressive purpose here. Traumgekrönt (Crowned in dream) is darker and more complex, the voice weaving its way through thickets of chromaticism with apparent ease. There is something slightly cabaret-like to Im Zimmer (Indoors) with both performers alert to the possibilities of the song and sides giving full weight to the words. Liebesode (Ode to Love) is more stately with a feel that merges neo-classicism with something more romantic. Finally, Sommertage (Summer days) is urgently romantic, pushing the chromatic harmony to its limit.

Berg’s Traumgekrönt sets the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, so it is fascinating to then move on to Viktor Ullmann setting three of Rilke’s translations of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese. Ullmann published these as his Op. 29 in Prague in 1940. Ullmann had been forced to flee Germany in 1933 and had returned to Prague where he worked as music teacher and journalist, including working for Czech Radio. Whilst he was influenced by Schoenberg and studied atonal music, he was more independent minded.

The first song, ‘My letters! all dead paper’ is intense and concentrated, the power of music in its complete focus. Here Ullmann is less interested in gorgeous melodies and more in the sheer expressiveness of harmonic complexity. Again Sides and Rybin sail through this, expressive and with great beauty yet never shying away from the complexity and darkness in the harmony. ‘Say over again’ has an urgency and intensity to it that soars from the page, and Rybin brings out the beauties in the challenging piano writing. ‘First time he kissed me…’ has a very specific and rather strong atmosphere, with Sides really bringing out the intensity of Barrett Browning’s story. All three of these songs are highly charged and pregnant with possibilities, tempting us to look into Ullmann’s future through them.

As the child of assimilated Jews, Ullmann was not able to evade the concentration camp. The performers finish this group with a snapshot of Ullmann in Theresienstadt: his Yiddish song Berjoskele (The Little Birch Tree). There is something folk-like in its directness, but that does not stop Ullmann giving the piano some wayward and complex harmonies.

Erich Korngold, also Jewish and born the year before Ullmann, was luckier. In the USA as a result of being invited to work on Max Reinhardt’s film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Korngold was about ready to return home to Vienna, having had enough of Hollywood, when the Anschluss happened and returning home was out of the question.

We hear his Three Songs, Op. 22 which date from 1928-29. There is a lyricism here that is absent from the Berg and the Ullmann and we can hear the influence of composers such as Richard Strauss and Mahler, logical models for a young Viennese composer. It is worth bearing in mind that Korngold was a prodigy so had been composing for 20 years by the time he came to write the songs. ‘Was Du mir bist?’ (What are you to me?) is questioning, the music’s beauty combining with complexity. ‘Mit Dir zu schweigen’ (With you in silence) is intense and intent, its focus gradually relaxing into harmonic beauty. ‘Welt ist stille eingeschlafen’ (The world has silently fallen asleep) gives us engagingly urgent textures. All three songs combine lyrical beauty with expressionist intent, enabling both performers to mine them for both beauty and profound expressivity.

We finish with the most recent songs on the disc, the elderly Richard Strauss looking back to his lyrical heyday. The songs were not conceived as a cycle (in fact there is a fifth ‘last song’, Malven which exists only in the piano version). But they were entrusted to Kirsten Flagstad, which tells us the sort of large, yet focused voice that Strauss envisaged. With Rybin’s sensitive piano playing, Sides soars effortlessly. What we notice most though, is not the beauty of her tone (though there is plenty of that), but her acuteness, the way she treats these as lieder, songs setting poetry where the words are important. Occasionally hardness creeps in the tone, and you feel that she is working a little too hard, but overall there is a lot to enjoy in these acute performances.

I still miss the beauties of the orchestral versions, the luxury of a large voice floating at ease over the orchestra (if you can’t get hold of the live recording of Flagstad, on YouTube, then try Jessye Norman). But here, Sides and Rybin give us something more intimate, more interesting, and the songs make a fascinating completion to this cycle of 20th century songs. And it is worth bearing in mind Strauss’s extreme age, Sides and Rybin could have begun the cycle with Strauss writing before Berg!

Of Love & Transience
Paula Sides (soprano)
Sergey Rybin (piano)
Recorded on December 10, 11 and 12, 2025 at Champs Hill
VOCES8 VCM192D 1CD [55:47]

Album link: https://orcd.co/ofloveandtransience