Favorite vocal recitals on CD or DVD

[Tsaraslondon]

Disc 19 from the Schwarzkopf Recital Box

This was recorded and released before the Mozart/Strauss disc, which made me realise the discs aren't numbered chronologically. No matter, it has been considered a classic since its release in 1968. Like the Four Last Songs, I've owned it since my college days, and it brings back memories of listening in my tiny room in student digs all those years ago. Some feel that the interpretations are too sophisticated for the essential folk-nature of the songs, but I'd argue that Mahler's wonderful orchestrations, superbly rendered here by Szell and the London Symphony Orchestra, already take them quite a few steps from their folk song roots.


Personally, I marvel at the intelligence, the detail and the sheer beauty of the singing. In comparison others sound just too penny plain. Is it interventionist interpretation? Well, I suppose it depends on how you look at it, but everything these superb artists find is there in the music, if you take the time to look for it. It's also a real collaboration between all three artists, the duet songs being some of the highlights of the set.


 

[Tsaraslondon]

Disc 20 in the Schwarzkopf Recitals Box.

If you think liesting to 46 Wolf songs in one go might be boring, then think again. With the two foremost Wolf interpeters of the day accompanied by Gerald Moore it is self-recommending, and remains the set by which all others are judged. Originally issued as a two disc set, it was recorded at sessions in Berlin in 1965, 1966 and 1967, with Schwarzkopf re-recording all the songs she had recorded back in 1959.

The songs are presented in the order they appear in the book, which really is the best way of doing them, and are mined for every shade of meaning by these two great artists, with the inestimable aid of Gerald Moore at the piano.

[Tsaraslondon]

Disc 20 & 21 in the Schwarzkopf Recital Box

Before anyone starts complaining of too much sophistication, one should point out that these are not really folk songs at all. Many were inventions of nineteenth century composers, and, in any case, Brahms's accompaniments turn them into songs by himself. That said, the songs are probably best listened to piecemeal, rather than at one sitting, when they could be said to outstay their welcome, though I'd suggest there are more plums on the second disc than the first.

Schwarzkopf and Fischer-Dieskau bring their familiar virtues of dramatic involvement and characterisation to the songs, and, though some may find their interventionist approach "mannered", I prefer it to the somewhat penny plain singing we get from so many interpreters these days.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Disc 20 & 21 in the Schwarzkopf Recital Box

Before anyone starts complaining of too much sophistication, one should point out that these are not really folk songs at all. Many were inventions of nineteenth century composers, and, in any case, Brahms's accompaniments turn them into songs by himself. That said, the songs are probably best listened to piecemeal, rather than at one sitting, when they could be said to outstay their welcome, though I'd suggest there are more plums on the second disc than the first.

Schwarzkopf and Fischer-Dieskau bring their familiar virtues of dramatic involvement and characterisation to the songs, and, though some may find their interventionist approach "mannered", I prefer it to the somewhat penny plain singing we get from so many interpreters these days.

I remember being in a record store (this would have been 3 or 4 decades ago) and sampling a debut album by a young and sadly now deceased Italian tenor and thinking at the time that it didn't matter what he was singing, it all sounded the same to me in terms of expression...what he was singing about, etc.  And, needless to say, when I later saw the reviews, they agreed with my sentiments. 

PD

[Tsaraslondon]

Disc 23 from the Schwarzkopf Recital box set.

The first volume of The Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Songbook, released in 1966, brought together recordings taped in 1957, 1958, 1962 and 1965, the latter amongst the last recordings of Gerald Moore. The programme starts and finishes with Schubert, with songs by Schumann, Wolf, Wolf-Ferrari, Debussy and Rachmaninov inbetween. One of the surprises of the disc is no doubt the inclusion of Danny Boy, which Schwarzkopf sings in clear, if slightly accented, English. The song is so familar that you would think it impossible to say anything new about it, but Schwarzkopf makes me sit up and listen, and i've always found this version peculiarly moving.

The programme is, as usual, impeccably thought out and it makes an eminently satisfactory disc.

[Tsaraslondon]

Discs 24, 25 and 26 in the Schwarzkopf Recital Box

No doubt the success of Volume 1 in this series prompted Legge and Schwarzkopf to put together three more discs in the same manner. It should be noted that Gerald Moore retired from the public platform in 1967 and, aside from a few tracks that were recorded before then, Geoffrey Parsons is the accompanist on volumes 2-4, which take us up to 1970.

As on the first discs, the programmes ranged wide. In addition to the more regularly encountered Schubert, Schumann and Wolf, they take in songs by Mozart, Mahler, Brahms, Strauss and Loewe, Debussy, Chopin and Liszt, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Stravinsky, Grieg and Wolf-Ferrari, though the Russian songs are sung in English or German translation. Though the voice has become richer, its centre of gravity no doubt lower than it once was, she can still lighten it to expresss sparkling, light-hearted joy. On the other hand, those darker colours now available to her are capable of the most intense sorrow and pain. I particularly enjoyed the Grieg songs on volumes 3 & 4. Even though sung in German, these performances wonderfully reveal the incredible richness of these songs.

[ritter]

First listen to this new arrival:



I had been in the lookout for this recital for quite a while, and a new copy appeared for sale from Disco100 (a fantastic B&M record shop in Barcelona) on amazon.es (now it seems to be unavailable again).

This recital was initially released on the Ensayo label in 1978, and won the Orphée d'Or and the Spanish Culture Ministry's National Record Prize at the time.

Carmen Bustamante (Tortosa, Spain, 1938) is a soprano and teacher who seems to have concentrated on recitals rather than on operas (although she did record La serva padrona next to Renato Capecchi). She had a very pure (almost childlike) voice, but was extraordinary expressive.

The programme is very well thought. First we get three of Eduardo Toldrá's refined Six Castilian Songs (on poems by Lope de Vega and Quevedo). Then,
Four of Jesús Guridi's Six Castilian Songs (yes, again ), including the wonderful ¿Cómo quieres que adivine? (a song is a favourite of mine, and few people know started out as part of the soundtrack of a 1940s, now almost forgotten film adaptation of Jacinto Benavente's La Malquerida). It was hearing this performance on YouTube by Sra. Bustamante that led me to seek out this CD.

We move on to a very engaging rendition of Mompou's Combat del somni (I've never been much of a fan of this composer, but this performance is quite convincing ), to then end with Rodolfo Halffter's Marinero en tierra ("Sailor on Dry Land"), on the poems that propelled Rafael Alberti to the forefront of Spanish poetry in the 1920s). These poems have a freshness, a folk-like ease, that make them ideal for musical settings, and R. Halffter does a wonderful job with them.

Miguel Zanetti accompanies beautifully on the piano.

All in all, a great selection of post-Falla 20th century Spanish songs, in superb performances.

Here are Guridi's ¿Cómo quieres que adivine? ("How can you expect me to guess?"), that I so much enjoy (it's essentially a Castilian jota, on a popular text):

P.S.: @Tsaraslondon , apologies for this Iberian diversion from your very interesting survey of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's recitals. 

[Tsaraslondon]

First listen to this new arrival:



I had been in the lookout for this recital for quite a while, and a new copy appeared for sale from Disco100 (a fantastic B&M record shop in Barcelona) on amazon.es (now it seems to be unavailable again).

This recital was initially released on the Ensayo label in 1978, and won the Orphée d'Or and the Spanish Culture Ministry's National Record Prize at the time.

Carmen Bustamante (Tortosa, Spain, 1938) is a soprano and teacher who seems to have concentrated on recitals rather than on operas (although she did record La serva padrona next to Renato Capecchi). She had a very pure (almost childlike) voice, but was extraordinary expressive.

The programme is very well thought. First we get three of Eduardo Toldrá's refined Six Castilian Songs (on poems by Lope de Vega and Quevedo). Then,
Four of Jesús Guridi's Six Castilian Songs (yes, again ), including the wonderful ¿Cómo quieres que adivine? (a song is a favourite of mine, and few people know started out as part of the soundtrack of a 1940s, now almost forgotten film adaptation of Jacinto Benavente's La Malquerida). It was hearing this performance on YouTube by Sra. Bustamante that led me to seek out this CD.

We move on to a very engaging rendition of Mompou's Combat del somni (I've never been much of a fan of this composer, but this performance is quite convincing ), to then end with Rodolfo Halffter's Marinero en tierra ("Sailor on Dry Land"), on the poems that propelled Rafael Alberti to the forefront of Spanish poetry in the 1920s). These poems have a freshness, a folk-like ease, that make them ideal for musical settings, and R. Halffter does a wonderful job with them.

Miguel Zanetti accompanies beautifully on the piano.

All in all, a great selection of post-Falla 20th century Spanish songs, in superb performances.

Here are Guridi's ¿Cómo quieres que adivine? ("How do you want me to guess?"), that I so much enjoy (it's essentially a Castilian jota, on a popular text):

P.S.: @Tsaraslondon , apologies for this Iberian diversion from your very interesting survey of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's recitals. 

No need to apolgise. This looks like a very interesting release. I do love Spanish song.

[Tsaraslondon]

Disc 27 in the Schwarzkopf Recital Box

Recorded at sessions in 1970 and 1973, with Geoffrey Parsons at the piano, this was, in all but name, another addition to the Songbook series, though this time concentrating on the two cornerstones of Schwarzkopf's Lieder repertoire, Schubert and Wolf, with the addition of Schumann's Der Nussbaum, revisiting material that she had recorded before. Though her artistry remains undimmed, we begin to be aware that this is no longer the voice of a young woman. Still there are rewards to be had in hearing how Schwarzkopf's ideas on certain songs changed over the years, and we note that each new version is a re-thinking of what she had done before. There is never any suspicion of routine.
 

[Tsaraslondon]

Disc 28 in the Schwarzkopf Recital Box

This was Schwarzkopf's last record for EMI, recorded in 1974 when she was approaching 60, and she herself had her doubts. Ever the realist and her own strictest critic, she was well aware of the diminution of her vocal powers. In fact, had it not been for Legge urging her on, she would probably have retired sooner. "My voice was on the waning side, and all kinds of muscular powers had gone, and the breathing had gone. You can hear that the voice was getting old, surely. And one doesn't like that and one tries to make do with all kinds of funny vowels, and oh dear it is really an awful thing." She was particularly unhappy with Frauenliebe und Leben, which she felt should, in any case, be sung by a mezzo. "I made up by darkening the colour and all sorts of things."


Of the two cycles, the Liederkreis is the more successful, but no amount of intelligent interpretation can disguise the fact that the voice is not what it was. That said, and making allowances for some "funny vowels" and an aging voice, it's a performance I've come to respect more and more over the years. In intention at least, it might be the greatest performance of the cycle I've ever heard.

[Tsaraslondon]

For Disc 29 from the Schwarzkopf Recital Box we go back almost to the beginning – a recording of a live all Wolf recital given in Salzburg in 1953, which was first released in 1968.

This was quite an occasion and something that Furtwängler himself had suggested. Wolf's piano parts can be fiendishly difficult, and he apparently practiced hard for the occasion. There are some wrong notes, and some wrong entries here and there, "but it doesn't matter. Furtwängler accompanying was an event, and so one had to do what one could to make it possibe. It was a service to Wolf, and to music, and a labour of love, that recital. With any other accompanist it matters if he cannot achieve the right tempi, but with Furtwängler it didn't matter."

This is of course an important document of a historic occasion, but I'm not sure I'd prefer any of these performances to the ones we have where Schwarzkopf is accompanied by Gerald Moore or Geoffrey Parsons. The accompaniments sometimes overwhelm the voice and there are quite a few wrong notes. I'm happy to have heard it, but I'm not sure it bears repeated listening the way her other recordings do.

[Tsaraslondon]

The final two discs (30 & 31) in the Schwarzkopf Recital box are given over to the concert in February 1967, at which the musical world, with the aid of his three most regular collaborators, said goodbye to Gerald Moore. There are duets and trios, and each of the singers gets their solo spot, for Fischer-Dieskau a group of Schubert songs, for De Los Angeles a group of Brahms, and for Schwarzkopf, inevitably, a group of Wolf songs, starting with the song she made so much her own, Kennst du das Land. It is a joyous occasion, and the audience evidently enjoyed themselves enormously. It ends with Moore's own solo arrangement of Schubert's An die Musik, which is also a fitting end to this whole enterprise. However Warner have tacked on Schwarzkopf's renditions of Abscheulicher! from Fidelio and Ah, perfido, which originally appeared as fill-ups for Karajan's Philharmonia set of the Beethoven symphonies. Leonore may not have been a role for Schwarzkopf but her rendition of the big scena is surprisingly successful, the slow section having a wonderful innigkeit. She is immeasurably helped by Dennis Brain's superb horn playing.
 

[Tsaraslondon]

o now I come to the end, the very last recording Schwarzkopf made, not, as it happens, for EMI, but for Decca. Walter Legge's rift with EMI was now complete and Ray Minshull approached Legge, saying he would like at least one Schwarzkopf recording in their catalogue. It was recorded at sessions in London and Vienna in 1977 and 1979, by which time, Schwarzkopf would have been 63.

It was called simply, To my friends., and Schjwarzkopf had this to say about it, "In that there is already the excuse that it's only for you who like me. Others may find great fault in it and rightly so, but maybe you like me enough to have it."

Well I do like Mme Schwarzkopf and, having listened almost exclusively to her for the last month, I can safely say the overused description of her singing as 'mannered' has never been so far off the mark. What I do hear is a superior intelligence and musicality, allied to an attention to detail, which brings music alive in a way that other more penny plain interpretations do not. Very occasionallly, the intellect gets in the way of the song. One misses, for instance, the natural simplcity of, say, Elisabeth Schumann, but in Lieder, and in Wolf in particular. her quest to find just the right inflections is what makes me keep coiming back. It's also interesting to note how her interpretations can vary from one performance to another.

The voice on this last record is certainly not the voice of young woman, but it remains within its slightly reduced range and dynamic, a voice mercifully free of woibble or excessive vibrato. It may not be the disc I would choose to demonstrate Schwarzkopf at her greatest, but I can safely say I am very pleased to have it in my collection as a fitting end to a great career on disc. In songs by Wolf, Loewe, Grieg and Brahms, she still demonstrates her ability to embrace and convey a wide range of emotions.

The record was completed in January 1979 and she gave her last performance at a recital in Zurich the following March. Three days later, Legge died and she abruptly cancelled all further engagements. The voice fell silent as it without Legge's constant encouragement. '"You can do it, meine Schwatz, you can do it, you sing that - you'll do it better." He was wrong there, I wouldn't have been better than people in full bloom of the voice. He thought there would be some moments which would be more memorable. But if you don't have the voice you cannot put over what you would like to - you make ways round it technically, and by that time it has already vanished.' Schwarzkopf was nothing if not pragmatic.

It was often said of her, disparagingly, that she was 'her master's voice.' Maybe, in some ways she was. It was an extraordinary partnership and it is no wonder that the performance side of her life also ended with Legge's death.
 

[Tsaraslondon]

The majority of this disc is taken up with Scotto's first recital for CBS, recorded in 1974, a recording that might be considered the one which spearheaded the second stage of her career, when she became a mainstay of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Having been absent from the catalogues for some time, an intense recording schedule followed. There would be another recital (of Verdi arias) for CBS, and throughout the seventies and early eighties she features on many complete opera recordings for CBS, EMI and RCA, often alongside Domingo, with whom she also recorded a recital of duets.

Scotto's voice always had a slight tang to it. Admirably clean, it would never charm with the full rich tones of a Caballé, a Moffo or a Te Kanawa. The top of the voice, even in her earliest recordings, could glare and it was never the most comfortable part of her range. Nor was it ever a sensual voice, though she could sound sensual enough if necessary (not the same thing), but her command of line, impeccable diction and range of colour are most attractive. She may not quite ravish the ear in the high lying phrases of, for instance, Ch'il bel sogno di Doretta from La Rondine as does Te Kanawa in the famous recording which was used for the movie of A Room with a View, but she shades the line most beautifully and her control of her pianissimo is quite gorgeous. She characterises well too, so that each of these verismo heroines emerge as quite different characters. Occasionally intellect gets in the way and the interpretations can sound too studied, as they never do with Callas, but it would be true to say that, though she has absorbed the lessons of her predecessor in some of this material, she never copies her. Her interpretations are all her own.

In the 1974 items she is wonderfully supported by the London Symphony Orchestra under Gianandrea Gavazzeni and it is good to have some less well known items such as the Mascagni arias and the aria from Le Villi as it is to have the excerpts from the complete recording of Wolf-Ferrari's Il segreto di Susanna and Puccini's Edgar. Her Butterfly is better served by the Barbirolli recording, but she is wonderfully imaginative in Un bel di when imaginging Pinkerton's return to her. The duet with Obraztsova from Adrianna Lecouvreur makes very little sense out of context. I'm not sure it was even necessary, given that the disc would still have lasted over an hour without it.

Nonetheless one of Scotto's best recordings, and one that is worth returning to quite often.

[Tsaraslondon]

This Verdi recital marked the beginning of a new, fairly intensive recording schedule for Scotto. In the ten years since her recording of Madama Butterfly under Barbirolli the slight hardness on top has become more noticeable, and many of the louder notes above the stave are quite strident. There are however compensations aplenty in her musicality, her dramatic awareness, her deep legato and the firmness of the line. Then there is the added attraction of her attention to detail and her intelligent use of the words (her diction is superb), though occasionally there is a lack of spontaneity. Art does not always conceal art.

There is a good mixture here of the familiar and the not so well known. In the former camp would be Lida's aria and cabaletta from La Battaglia di Legnano, a fairly conventional piece whose cabaletta is nonetheless energetically exciting, and which Scotto attacks head on. There is a slight suspicion that the voice is a little small for the other early works here (Nabucco and I Lombardi), but she has an innate feeling for Verdian style and the cavatinas of both are beautifully moulded, the cabalettas propulsive and exciting. The voice takes on a lovely melancholy tinta for Elena's Arrigo, ah parli a un core, which lies mostly in the middle register, though she eschews the written low F# in the cadenza, taking a higher alternative. She then sings a bright and breezy Merce, dilette amiche. Best of all, probably because neither takes her much above the stave are Violetta's Addio, del passato, the reading of the letter absolutely heart-wrenching, and Desdemona's Willow Song and Ave Maria, which is alive to every dramatic contrast, her singing full of anxious foreboding. Soon after this she would make a most touching Desdemona both on stage at the Met and on record in Domingo's first recording.

Some may prefer a richer voice for this music, but few who are more vocally endowed sing with such specificity, such attention to the meaning of the text, such musicality and appreciation of Verdian style. Where other sopranos, like Souliotis and Sass, can be accused of being copycat Callases, Scotto can be said to have absorbed the lessons of Callas without losing her own individuality. This is a very good recital.
 

[Tsaraslondon]

Domingo recorded quite a few duet recitals in the 1970s, with Sherrill Milnes (1970), with Katia Ricciarelli (1972), with LeontynePrice (1974) and this one, with Renata Scotto, in 1978, which is, in many ways, the most successful. For a start, the material is refreshingly unhackneyed, and, although we are vouchsafed only four excerpts, they are quite long (the shortest 8'52"), which makes for a more satisfying listening experience than lots of shorter pieces. The original LP had the French items, which are no doubt better known on the first side and the Italian ones on the second.

Scotto was at the high watermark of what was often referred to as her second career. In the 1960s she had recorded for EMI and DG, but signed to CBS/Sony in the 1970s appearing on many complete sets and recording recitals of Verdi and verismo. The voice was never a conventionally beautiful one and by this time could turn squally and shrill on top notes, but the compensations were many and included her superb musicality, her dramatic involvement, her attention to the text and her natural, unforced, excellent diction. As you can hear here, her French was less idiomatic than her Italian but you can at least hear the words clearly, and it is the French items I enjoyed most on this recital, though that could possibly reflect my preference for the material in question. I've never been a big fan of verismo.

Domingo is his reliable self, the voice in good shape, but at this time in his career his performances could seem a little generic, and there is not much difference between his Roméo and his Des Grieux, his Loris and his Giorgio, however musical his actual singing.

Both singers are attentive to the different styles required of the composers in question, but it is Scotto who is better at vocal characterisation, adopting an appropriately more seductive tone for Manon than she does for the girlishly innocent Juliette. Her Fedora also sounds more mature and commanding than her Luisa in the Mascagni opera, which is a sort of verismo mirror piece to Gounod's Roméo et Juliette.

All in all, this is a very enjoyable duet recital, both in terms of the singing and the music tackled, and it is an excellent showcase for both singers.
 

[Tsaraslondon]

Nowadays, and no doubt in hindsight, I am more aware of the danger signs, the unsupported middle register and the gear changes between registers. The complete absence of anything ressembling a trill is also a problem in this repertoire. Still this is exciting, if reckless singing.

A much fuller review on my website Elena Souliotis Opera Recital

[Pohjolas Daughter]

This Verdi recital marked the beginning of a new, fairly intensive recording schedule for Scotto. In the ten years since her recording of Madama Butterfly under Barbirolli the slight hardness on top has become more noticeable, and many of the louder notes above the stave are quite strident. There are however compensations aplenty in her musicality, her dramatic awareness, her deep legato and the firmness of the line. Then there is the added attraction of her attention to detail and her intelligent use of the words (her diction is superb), though occasionally there is a lack of spontaneity. Art does not always conceal art.

There is a good mixture here of the familiar and the not so well known. In the former camp would be Lida's aria and cabaletta from La Battaglia di Legnano, a fairly conventional piece whose cabaletta is nonetheless energetically exciting, and which Scotto attacks head on. There is a slight suspicion that the voice is a little small for the other early works here (Nabucco and I Lombardi), but she has an innate feeling for Verdian style and the cavatinas of both are beautifully moulded, the cabalettas propulsive and exciting. The voice takes on a lovely melancholy tinta for Elena's Arrigo, ah parli a un core, which lies mostly in the middle register, though she eschews the written low F# in the cadenza, taking a higher alternative. She then sings a bright and breezy Merce, dilette amiche. Best of all, probably because neither takes her much above the stave are Violetta's Addio, del passato, the reading of the letter absolutely heart-wrenching, and Desdemona's Willow Song and Ave Maria, which is alive to every dramatic contrast, her singing full of anxious foreboding. Soon after this she would make a most touching Desdemona both on stage at the Met and on record in Domingo's first recording.

Some may prefer a richer voice for this music, but few who are more vocally endowed sing with such specificity, such attention to the meaning of the text, such musicality and appreciation of Verdian style. Where other sopranos, like Souliotis and Sass, can be accused of being copycat Callases, Scotto can be said to have absorbed the lessons of Callas without losing her own individuality. This is a very good recital.
 

Your comments are prompting me to head upstairs and do some digging in my Verdi sets (and also recitals) to see what all I have of her recordings...particularly re Otello (I suspect that the cover is either from that opera or is alluding to it?).

Suliotis is a name that I've heard of before, but I don't believe that I have any of her recordings.  Your comments about her singing style make me think that you believe that her singing techniques lead to later vocal problems??

PD

[Tsaraslondon]

Your comments are prompting me to head upstairs and do some digging in my Verdi sets (and also recitals) to see what all I have of her recordings...particularly re Otello (I suspect that the cover is either from that opera or is alluding to it?).

Suliotis is a name that I've heard of before, but I don't believe that I have any of her recordings.  Your comments about her singing style make me think that you believe that her singing techniques lead to later vocal problems??

PD

I'm not sure, but I think the Scotto photos is from I Vespri Siciliani, which she sang at the Met around the same time this record was first issued. She is the Desdemona on Domingo's first studio recording of Otello with Milnes as Iago and Levine conducting. I like the recording very much, especially her contribution to it.

Souliotis's cafrer was pretty short. She is thrilling as Abigaille in the Decca Gardelli recording with Gobbi, but even here you can hear that she was singing very recklessly a role that is known to be a killer. She was in her early twenties and sang it all over the place for quite a while. Callas famously called it a voice wrecker and never sang it again after her performances in Naples in 1949. She advised Caballé against singing it, and she never did. Gisueppina Strepponi, the role's creator and Verdi's eventual wife, also sang it quite a lot and she too was sung out by the time she was thrity-one. The recordings she made for Decca between 1965 and 1971 chart the decline quite well.

[Tsaraslondon]

Berlioz's Les Nuis d'Eté has always been a favourite work of mine. I have ten recordings and have heard quite a few more and this famous recording, one of the earliest, made in 1954, has always rightly been considered one of the best.

The voice itself is a beautiful one, firm and even throughout its range,and she is thoroughly in control of its resources. There is a great deal of pleasure to be had merely from the sound of the voice and the way she weights and measures phrases, but she is also keenly responsive to the poetry, ideally melding the needs of the musical line to the meaning of the words.

True, Villanelle has always seemed a tad too slow to me, a little lacking in gaiety, but it is close to the metronome marking of crotchet = 96, so perhaps the fault lies with Mitropoulos, who fails to make the woodwind light enough. Elsewhere he provides excellent support and speeds are judiciously chosen.

The rest of the disc is taken up with more Berlioz (beautifully sung performances of La Captive, Le jeune pâtre breton and Zaïde conducted by Jean Morel) and orotorio arias by Bach, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn. True, these latter, conducted by Max Rudolf, have a slightly old-fashioned, somewhat Victorian air about them, but they are impeccably sung and her diction is exemplary. These were recorded a few years earlier, in 1951, and the voice is at its freshest and most beautiful.

The disc comes with copious notes and photos, but, regrettably, no texts and translations.