“The greatest song cycle ever written.” – at least Glenn Gould is very clear in his judgement of Paul Hindemith’s Marienleben. This superlative does not necessarily have to be shared, but what the 27-year-old, who was already one of Germany’s best-known musicians at the time in 1923, achieved is certainly worth hearing and marvelling at. Celebrated as an instrumentalist, Hindemith was considered a bourgeois terror as a composer, provoking with sayings such as “Tonschönheit ist Nebensache” (beauty of tone is a secondary matter) or “Nimm nehmen keine Rücksicht auf, was Du in der Klavierstunde gelernt hast” (have no regard for what you learned in piano lessons). In Mary’s Life, based on a collection of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, he shows a completely different, internalised side. “There is something in these songs that forces and fascinates the listener beyond all habits of conventional song manner” wrote a contemporary reviewer, and to this day there is nothing to add. Yvonne Friedli and Constantin Alex make it palpable in their sensitive interpretation.