Label: Sony Classical (CD + DVD)
Artists: Jonas Kaufmann (tenor), Helmut Deutsch (piano)
Works (CD): Robert Schumann – Dichterliebe Op. 48; Zwölf Kerner-Lieder Op. 35
Bonus: Six songs from Dichterliebe (recorded Munich, 1994)
DVD: Doppelgänger – staged version of Franz Schubert’s Schwanengesang, directed by Claus Guth, filmed at Park Avenue Armory, New York (2023)
Release: September 2025 · Available on all streaming platforms (audio only)
By Damián Autorino
Editor at Moto Perpetuo
The album
With Doppelgänger, Jonas Kaufmann presents a project in two parts: a CD devoted to Schumann’s great song cycles, and a DVD of Claus Guth’s acclaimed staging of Schubert’s Schwanengesang. In digital streaming, only the audio is available — so here we focus on the album itself, while acknowledging the broader context of the theatrical work.
Kaufmann and Deutsch
Kaufmann’s partnership with pianist Helmut Deutsch has become one of the defining collaborations in the Lied repertoire today. Recorded in the spring of 2020, during the first Covid lockdown, these interpretations of Dichterliebe and Kerner-Lieder carry the intimacy of “domestic music-making,” yet without losing depth or concentration. Kaufmann’s tenor, shaded by decades of operatic and recital experience, and Deutsch’s crystalline pianism bring both passion and nuance to Schumann’s settings of Heine and Kerner.
Tradition and renewal
Dichterliebe — composed in Schumann’s “year of song,” 1840 — has long been a cornerstone of the Lied tradition, immortalised in recordings by Fischer-Dieskau, Bostridge, and many others. Kerner-Lieder, less often heard complete, shows a different side of Schumann: sometimes pastoral, sometimes visionary, and in the last songs (Stille Tränen, Wer machte dich so krank?, Alte Laute), profoundly moving. By bringing these cycles together, Kaufmann and Deutsch underline their complementary voices in Schumann’s world.
A double Doppelgänger
The title resonates on two levels. The DVD preserves Guth’s Doppelgänger, an Armory staging that recast Schwanengesang as a wartime meditation, culminating in Schubert’s ghostly song Der Doppelgänger. But the album itself also contains another “double”: alongside today’s mature interpretations, Kaufmann includes six tracks from Dichterliebe recorded as a student in 1994. Hearing the young singer’s youthful voice, still finding its shape, next to the fully developed artist creates a dialogue across time — a confrontation with his own musical past. This second Doppelgänger may be the most personal and daring gesture of all, adding unexpected richness to a release that is at once historical, theatrical, and deeply human.
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