Following the success of “Vinterreise” (LWC1013), featuring a Norwegian version of Schubert’s song cycle, Håvard Stensvold and Tor Espen Aspaas have now released their second album on the LAWO Classics label—“Mit vierzig Jahren”. This time we are offered up the songs of Johannes Brahms with their original German texts. The album title is taken from one of the songs, which gives rise to the turning-forty crisis: “At age forty you are standing on the mountain top, and, before you know it, your life is over.” Stensvold (43) and Aspaas (43) have both made it through this juncture, and on this recording they have collected some of Brahms’s finest, from the

wonderful narrative songs to the more intimate and tender. A favourite is “Mondnacht”, which has a more famous half brother in Schumann’s version.