Brahms: Lieder

MusicWeb International “This is an important disc and one that will give great pleasure since it contains so much fine and deeply committed singing. It’s certainly a mandatory purchase for all admirers of Brahms’s lieder or of Dame Janet Baker.” The Times “what singing: what a voice, what beauty of line, variety of colour, incisive diction and unforced mastery of the whole difficult art of Lieder…the disc is a feast.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide 2010 “Listening to these Brahms songs culled from BBC broadcasts one realises just why Dame Janet's reputation continues to remain so high and why so many of her successors don't quite match her standards. To every song here, familiar or unfamiliar, she brings her special ability of making it her own and reaching to its heart. It's an almost uncanny gift, and not one easy to explain, but it makes every song in this programme momentous. Wondrous is the sustained half-voice with which she invests Nachtwandler with its intimate, sad feeling. Then there's the outpouring of joy that is Meine Liebe ist grün to which she brings the most lustrous tone and an outgoing manner, and finally the gentle sense of fun, never overdone, which she brings to the very familiar VergeblichesStändchen. If Brahms had written no other songs than Feldeinsamkeit, Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht and Von ewiger Liebe, he would surely be hailed as a great Lieder composer. Baker obviously understands their astonishing high quality. The first is sung, as it should be, with a kind of inner wonder, each amazing line given its full due. In the second, a Liebestod avant la lettre, she sings with the proper impassioned feeling, while the last, a happier statement of eternal love, is sung with the rugged conviction that always showed the singer at her very best. Lush and Hamburger, especially the latter, are fully cognisant of what to do with Brahms's intricate writing for the piano. The sound is admirable, catching early Baker in full flow.”