OLIVIER MESSIAEN - Poèmes pour Mi - Épouvante
Orchestre National de Lyon cond. by Jun Märkl (Naxos 8.572174)
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"Schwanewilms's lush soprano is a seamless instrument from top to bottom...radiating ardor at every dynamic level" Fanfare Magazine

"Schwanewilms has a lovely silvery voice with an element of steel in it. Not for nothing is she known as a Strauss soprano. She has a nice sense of line and beautifully spins out the long-breathed melodic lines." www.musicweb-international.com

"Anne Schwanewilms sings Messiaen's POEMES POUR MI with sensual liquid beauty." www.irishtimes.com

"Messiaen wrote the part for a 'grand soprano dramatique' - one imagines a Gallic Brunnhilde or Isolde - and Anne Schwanewilms comes close to fitting the bill. Her voice is warm and sumptuous throughout her range, she sings with effortless flexibility, she can float radiantly over the orchestra, and she has the security to nail the tricky intervals with aplomb...her expansive, lustrous performance is a revelation." www.allmusic.com

RICHARD WAGNER - Lohengrin
Radio Filharmonisch Orkest cond. by Jaap van Zweden (Quattro Live)
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RICHARD STRAUSS - Guten Morgen
From Richard Strauss, The Complete Songs, Volume 2
Anne Schwanewilms, soprano; Roger Vignoles, piano (Hyperion CDA67588)
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"Not even Felicity Lott with Graham Johnson can match Anne Schwanewilms and Roger Vignoles here in the Drei Lieder der Ophelia..... By any yardstick this is magnificent singing, with Schwanewilms always alert to the dramatic potential in so many of Strauss's songs....you admire the effortless partnership between the two musicians, each, it seems, hanging on the other's last word....." International Record Review

"Her singing of such favourites as 'Traum durch die Daemmerung' supports the claim that she is one of the leading Strauss singers of the new generation" Sunday Telegraph

"...the remarkable German soprano Anne Schwanewilms...this is even better than (Volume) One...an absolute must for admirers of Strauss and German lieder alike..by the dint of her sheer musicality she shows in a song like 'Die Nacht' what an accomplished musician she is" BBC Radio 3/CD Review

"It's hard to dispute Roger Vignoles's claim that Anne Schwanewilms is a 'great singing actress'. That's clear in every song where both the overall 'tinta' and the text have not been just scrupulously attended to in the head but are excitingly delivered with the heart...There's a real experience here, knowingly and profoundly communicated...It's a great voice for Strauss, in a set that shows it to great advantage." Gramophone

"Schwanewilms sings Das Rosenband with an easy grace that disguises her iron technique, and Waldseligkeit as if to prove that there are few purer excitements than the long-held note" The Times

"This recital is the first Strauss disc she has had to herself but we already know her luminous legato from the disc of Strauss orchestral songs she made with Mark Elder on the Halle label...More revelatory is the way Schwanewilms' uncanny ability to change colour within a single note lends a strange beauty to the more disquieting songs...If the rest of Hyperion's series is anything like this one, it should win all sorts of awards" BBC Music Magazine

"The German soprano Anne Schwanewilms has a deep understanding of the complexity and layering of Strauss songs. Roger Vignoles, meanwhile, accompanies with his usual skill, never overshadowing his partner" Scotland on Sunday

"Schwanewilms' crystal voice is perfectly suited to the works as she shapes each phrase with heartfelt feeling. From the opening 'Die Nacht' on, every song is a gem" Northern Echo

"So far, (her) recordings have been few but it is a deserved compliment to be chosen by Hyperion as the second singer for its Richard Strauss series...He (Strauss) so often built in a soaring radiance into his soprano parts that it seems reasonable to deduce that her (Pauline Strauss) voice had that quality, represented best in the sopranos of the last thirty years by Gundula Janowitz and Margaret Price. Anne Schwanewilms, who has already made a name for herself on 'Four Last Songs', belongs to that dynasty...in the three Ophelia songs of Opus 67...Schwanewilms maintains absolute purity of intonation in this challenging set...A highly rewarding recital, then, which will certainly enhance the reputation of this soprano..." Classical Source.com

"Lovers of lieder are again in debt to Hyperion...Vignoles has lead off with the two finest Strauss sopranos currently performing: Christine Brewer (on the Complete Songs 1) and Anne Schwanewilms....Schwanewilms never makes an ugly sound. Her cool 'young heroic' voice takes on particular purity and sheen at soft dynamics, yet shines with bright metal at full volume. She and Vignoles excel in dreamy moods, sustaining the exquisite 'Traum durch die Dammerung,' 'Die Nacht' and 'Ruhe, meine Seele' with aplomb. This thoughtful issue blends such beloved fare with virtually unknown songs, and provides texts, translations and Vignoles's helpful notes." Time Out (New York)

"Schwanewilms gives fully authoritative performances of these demanding songs, which showcase her seamless, organically flowing sound...Her lyric soprano voice retains an unusual, velvety pureness, even when the music is high and loud or the music jagged and full of leaps. It's a sound that wears well, through a wide range of dynamics, tessitura and emotion, and that is fortunate, because this disc is worth hearing repeatedly in order to savor these sophisticated, ravishing pieces, many of which are rarely heard." Opera News

RICHARD STRAUSS - Don Juan / Macbeth / Seven Orchestral Songs
Hallé Orchestra conducted by Mark Elder (CD HLL 7508)
"... If only there were more...Her singing in these songs is exquisite, inevitably silvery in timbre, pure in pitch, keen in articulation. She proves herself an imposing mistress of Strauss's long, shimmering, arching line. She savours the tender value of understatement, and her tone generally gains in sweetness and poise the higher it rises. Unlike many a celebrated predecessor, she even distinguishes betwen sentiment and sentimentality. Schwanewilms. Remember the name." Opera News
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GUSTAV MAHLER - Symphony No. 8
Jane Eaglen, Anne Schwanewilms, Ruth Ziesak, Sara Fulgoni, Anna Larsson, Ben Heppner, Peter Mattei, Jan-Hendrik Rootering
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly (Decca 467314)
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FELIX MENDELSSOHN - Symphony No. 2 "Lobgesang"
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Ricardo Chailly (Decca 475 6939)
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RICHARD STRAUSS - Four Last Songs
BBC Music Magazine - Free CD with Vol. 14, No. 13,
to celebrate the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Bridgewater Hall, Manchester


RICHARD STRAUSS - Elektra
WDR Orchestra conducted by Semyon Bychkov (Profil 2SACD PH05022)
"Schwanewilms gives a thrilling account of Chrysothemis's high-flying role in the manner of Leonie Rysanek and superior to other rivals." Gramophone
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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART - Idomeneo - D'Oreste, d'Aiace
Salzburg Easter Festival, April 2004, private recording
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle


CARL MARIA VON WEBER - Euryanthe
Live Radio Three broadcast from Royal Albert Hall, August 2002.
Glyndebourne Opera production, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Mark Elder



RICHARD STRAUSS - Der Rosenkavalier - Da geht er hin
Sachsische Staatskapelle Dresden cond. by Fabio Luisi. (Medici Arts 2056918)
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"...has to be seen for Anne Schwanewilms's Marschallin, one the most consummate operatic performances I have ever seen. Along with a beautiful, expressive face made for the cameras to adore come exquisitely phrased and coloured singing, total physical ease and an attention to the text which only a native German singer could achieve...But for Schwanewilms...this is an unmissable production." BBC Music Magazine

"Taking top honors is Anne Schwanewilms, a radiant, elegant Marschallin. A gorgeous woman...she looks and sounds a bit like Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, though livelier and more approachable in character. She has the noble bearing, wears clothes like a high-fashion model, and is painstaking in delivering individual words meaningfully. Her monologue is carefully nuanced; less expected is the piquancy and vocal panache with which she soars into the sarcastic phrase to Ochs, "Ich sehe, Euer Liebden betreiben es als Profession" (I see , your lordship follows [womanizing] as a profession.)" Opera News

"When the film team gets this right, however, this production comes into its own. Schwanewilms's soliloquy in Act 1 is filmed in close-up, beautifully lit by the side of a great window; and this intense artist, utterly self-possessed and focused, is able to draw the force of the action unto herself. Totally at the service of the music, with a uniformly creamy tone and fluent, unforced acting, she becomes the subjectivity in whom all other plots come home to roost, and when the engineers again get it right in the final trio, you are clear that this is the Marschallin's story."Opera

"Her Marschallin is an established, elegant, self-aware woman who has - despite the manner and carriage of high society - a resourceful intelligence. Like all distinguished interpreters of this role, she seems to bring time to a standstill in the monologue at the end of the first act as she shares with the audience the deep feelings of a woman who is both down-to-earth, and tensely, painfully dreaming."Das Opernglas


RICHARD WAGNER - Lohengrin - Hilf Gott, was muss ich Hören
Radio Filharmonisch Orkest cond. by Jaap van Zweden (Quattro Live)
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RICHARD STRAUSS - Ariadne Auf Naxos - Es Gibt Ein Reich
Teatro Real, Madrid, live broadcast from the house on October 2nd 2006
Anne Schwanewilms as Ariadne, opera house orchestra
Conducted by Jesus Lopez Cobos


RICHARD STRAUSS - Four Last Songs - September
Lubeck, 2005, live TV broadcast
Conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi



LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN - Symphony No. 9 "Choral" (Philips 074 3060)
Anne Schwanewilms, Barbara Dever, Paul Groves, Franz Hawlata
Tokyo Opera Singers, Saito Kinen Orchestra, conducted by Seiji Ozawa
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RICHARD WAGNER - Lohengrin: "Einsam in trüben Tagen had ich zu Gott gefleht"
From Berlin Opera Night (EuroArts 2053588)
Anne Schwanewilms, Choir of the German Opera Berlin
Orchestra of the German Opera Berlin conducted by Kent Nagano
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FELIX MENDELSSOHN - Symphony No. 2 "Lobesgang"
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly (EURO ARTS 2054668)
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FRANZ SCHREKER - Die Gezeichneten
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester conducted by Kent Nagano
Live recording at Salzburg, 2005 (EURO ARTS 2055298)

"Schwanewilms looks and sounds glorious." Opera magazine

"This production is crowned by a magnificent performance from the soprano Anne Schwanewilms." New Yorker

"Anne Schwanewilms's voice is too sweet to call metallic, but its honey blazes over the orchestra, voluptuous and gleaming: She is little Salome all grown up, and she gives an entrancing performance." Opera News
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