Friedrich Burgmüller, Franz Schubert, Anja Lechner, Pablo Márquez

Die Nacht is the first duo album by German cellist Anja Lechner and Argentinean guitarist Pablo Márquez, a programme of Franz Schubert heard through the guitar rather than the piano. It rests on a real historical practice: in Vienna many of Schubert's songs circulated in versions with guitar during his lifetime, some of them published before the piano editions. With the cello taking the vocal line, the songs become intimate instrumental pieces, and the disc moves at the pace of a small evening gathering among friends.

Lechner and Márquez were introduced in 2003 by their mutual friend Dino Saluzzi, and have played together in concert since then. For Lechner it was her first purely classical recording for ECM since Haydn's Seven Last Words with the Rosamunde Quartett. The album was recorded in November 2016 in the Spiegelsaal of the Residenz in Eichstätt, with Stephan Schellmann as engineer and Manfred Eicher as producer. The song arrangements draw on a manuscript collection that belonged to Franz Xaver von Schlechta, a poet in Schubert's circle. Der Leiermann and the Romanze from Rosamunde were transcribed by the two players themselves.

The centre of the disc is the Arpeggione Sonata in A minor, D 821, written for a short-lived six-string bowed instrument that was half cello, half guitar. Its piano part is light enough to pass naturally to the guitar, and Lechner sings the Adagio without pressing. Der Leiermann, the last song of Winterreise, is played with the cello holding the bare drone fifths of the hurdy-gurdy, cold and very quiet. Between the Schubert pieces come the Trois Nocturnes by Friedrich Burgmüller (1806-1874), written originally for cello and guitar. The first of them opens the programme and returns, varied, at its close.

The press response was warm. Gavin Engelbrecht in the Northern Echo called it "a soothing recital that comes highly recommended". Dominy Clements of MusicWeb International (2018) praised a balance between the two players that makes "each piece here into something precious and poetic". He found Burgmüller's song-like nocturnes a perfect complement to Schubert. In Early Music Review, D. James Ross recalled that Schubert himself played the guitar, so that hearing his songs this way is entirely plausible.

This is the CD edition, ECM New Series 2555, first released on 2 November 2018, with a booklet essay by Wolfgang Sandner.