Brahms - Alto Rhapsody - Sara Mingardo

Lucerne Festival Orchestra
Andris Nelsons director
Sara Mingardo, alto.
Bavarian Radio Choir

Sara Mingardo is the real thing.  I like her rendition better than most of the old standbys from the early-mid and late 1900s.   Andris Nelsons is a fine conductor.

Score

Translation:

But who stands there apart?
In the thicket, lost is his path;
Behind him the bushes
Are closing together,
The grass springs up again,
The desert engulfs him.

Ah, who will heal his afflictions,
To whom balsam was poison,
Who, from love's fullness,
Drank in misanthropy only?
First hated, and now hates,
He, in secret, wastes
All that he is worth,
In  selfishness vainity.

If there be, on thy psaltery,
Father of Love, but one tone
That to his ear may be pleasing,
Oh, then, quicken his heart!
Clear his cloud-enveloped eyes
Over the thousand fountains
Close by the thirsty one
In the desert.

From Wolfgang von Goethe:  Harzreise im Winter