Alban Berg’s Seven Early Songs form the backbone of this hybrid SACD that features the soprano Julia Kleiter accompanied by pianist Michael Gees. They are threaded throughout the disc, in between songs by Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Franz Schubert, Yrjö Kilpinen, Hugo Wolf and Arnold Schoenberg.

The recording also includes an improvisation by Julia Kleiter and Michael Gees based on Hermann Hesse’s ‘Sternklare Nacht’.

The highly-regarded German soprano Julia Kleiter made her operatic debut in 2004 as Pamina at Opéra-Bastille in Paris under Jiri Kout. Since then she has sung this role in several productions in Madrid, Zürich, at the Edinburgh Festival, in New York, Munich and at Salzburg Festival, with conductors such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Marc Minkowski and Claudio Abbado.

In 2007 she appeared as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier and Zdenka in Arabella under Franz Welser-Möst. Other highlights of her operatic career have been performing Papagena under Claudio Abbado, and Amor in Orfeo ed Euridice under Ricardo Muti in Florence. In 2012 she was critically acclaimed for her debut performance as Almirena in Händel's Rinaldo at the Lyric Opera in Chicago.

This is Kleiter’s first recording as a solo recitalist, but she has already appeared on Challenge Classics alongside Christoph Prégardien - and Michael Gees - on an acclaimed disc of Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch (CC72378). Michael Gees has also made solo improvised recordings of Satie (CC72512) and Schumann (CC72597) for Challenge.