Search - Elisabeth Schumann, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz [Vienna] Schubert :: Elisabeth Schumann performs Mozart, Schubert and others.

Broadcast Lecture-Recitals from the 1950s.

John Austin | Kangaroo Ground, Australia | 07/04/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Collectors benefit greatly from the item descriptions available on the Website. Appreciated especially are the "On This CD" details provided. In the case of this CD, however, there is a need for additional information.The CD comprises two broadcast lecture recitals, two items recorded at a London Prom Concert, and a selection of five of the singer's commercial recordings. The two lecture recitals were broadcast over the BBC in 1950 and 1951. The singer discusses, in her exceptionally high soprano speaking voice, some of the elements of her singing technique - breath control, the mastery of the trill, staccato, enunciation - and urges the need for painstaking study of text and music. On hand is the accompanist Ernest Lush, so each broadcast includes complete performances of well-known items from the singer's repertoire. Despite her advanced age (she died soon after the second broadcast aged 63), having to cope with a foreign language (she ended one broadcast with "...and please forgive my terrible English"), having to dart around the studio, and apparently relying on the inspiration of the moment, the singer is in remarkably good voice. Clearly, however, we hear an elderly singer, and we hear also ideas and a manner of speaking that are dated. Some of Elisabeth Schumann's greatest gramophone successes were a series of Mozart arias she recorded in the 1920s. In 1936 she appeared at one of Sir Henry J Wood's Promenade Concerts to sing two of them, and the occasion was successfully recorded. The final tracks provide less than ideal transfers of recordings of Mozart and Haydn songs Elisabeth Schumann made between 1930 and 1945. The CD, produced in Germany by the BelAge label, includes adorable pictures of the singer, excellent notes by Paul Korenhof, and runs for 75 minutes. An error that should have been detected is that "lieder" is spelt "leader" in one or two places on the CD label and in the notes."