Igor Markevitch (1912–83) was born in Kiev into a family of Ukrainian, French, and Italian lineage. At 14, living with his family in Switzerland, the teenaged Markevitch was discovered by Alfred Cortot, who took the boy with him to Paris and enrolled him in the Ecole Normale. It was there that he trained under Cortot and Nadia Boulanger for a career as a pianist and composer. His first break in the latter capacity came in 1929, when the 17-year-old was commissioned by Serge Diaghilev to write a piano concerto and to collaborate on a ballet. The ballet project came to naught when Diaghilev died later that year, but the young Markevitch completed the concerto, which was subsequently published by Schott.

For the next dozen years, between 1929 and 1941, Markevitch dedicated himself to composing, averaging two works per year in a variety of musical genres and forms. But after the onset of a serious illness late in 1941, he decided to abandon his career as a composer and turned his attention to conducting. He was not, however, a neophyte to the order, as this sudden occupational change might suggest. He had made his conducting debut at the age of 18 leading the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; in subsequent appearances with various ensembles, he had already distinguished himself as a recognized exponent of French, Russian, and 20th-century repertoire. As a point of passing interest, it might be mentioned that the conductor Oleg Caetani—currently director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra—is Markevitch’s son by his second wife, Donna Topazia Caetani, herself a distant descendant of the Roman family of 14th-century Pope Boniface VII.

Markevitch’s discography is by no means negligible, but unlike those of other more widely celebrated media darlings (the roughly contemporaneous Karajan comes to mind), his recordings have yet to be cataloged and collected together systematically in a way that makes it easy to grasp the full measure of his contribution. Record labels devoted to restoring historical material, such as Archipel, Tahra, Testament, and Urania, have made a few random stabs at it, but the fact remains that Markevitch’s recordings are scattered far and wide, and some, still available only on LPs selling for eye-popping prices, are difficult to come by, assuming you can afford them. I found, for example, a vinyl copy of what claimed to be a 1955 Rite of Spring with the Philharmonia on an RCA Red Seal LP posted on eBay for an asking price of $145.99. Curiously, this is the only reference I’ve come across to a 1955 Rite, and one to boot on RCA. I’m guessing it was originally pressed in the U.K. by HMV, and I suspect that the actual recording is the 1952 version, 1955 probably being the date of the RCA pressing. What do these eBay sellers know?

Markevitch did make commercial recordings of all three of the works on this disc, in some cases more than once. In 1954, he recorded the Ravel with the Philharmonia; with the same orchestra he led The Rite of Spring twice, in mono in 1952 and in a stereo remake in 1959. Yet another late recording of the Stravinsky with the Suisse Romande Orchestra dates from 1982, one year before the conductor’s death. And for Deutsche Grammophon, in 1950s mono, he recorded Honegger’s Symphony No. 5 with the Lamoureux Orchestra. To the best of my knowledge, all of these are now, or at one time have been, available on CD.

Like another, slightly earlier conductor I can think of, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Igor Markevitch is, I believe, vastly underrated. The recording at hand, however, should go several miles toward boosting his reputation. To begin with, whatever audio engineer Ludger Böckenhoff and the Audite team have done to remaster the original source material, it qualifies as a latter-day miracle. The sound on this disc—its dynamic range, frequency response, and depth of stage—is simply phenomenal. At nine seconds into the Rite of Spring’s “Dances of the Young Girls,” for instance, a cross-rhythm pops out in the bassoon that I don’t believe I’ve ever heard before, even in the latest state-of-the-art SACD recordings.

But let’s not shortchange Markevitch’s role in this. His take on Stravinsky’s still shocking pagan ritual is bracing and determinedly defiant. In his hands, the composer’s score is not one for the lithe, acrobatically inclined danseur, but for the toned, hard-bodied gymnast. For Markevitch, it’s all about the interplay of complex, unyielding rhythms and sudden, explosive gamma ray bursts. The ear-shattering blast that introduces the “Ritual of Abduction” gave me a real start; it was like a Molotov cocktail being lobbed through a plate glass window. Not for Markevitch the toning down or smoothing out of Stravinsky’s heinous hosanna to the cult of ritualistic human sacrifice, a kind of musical prequel, if you will, to Shirley Jackson’s 1948 short story The Lottery. Interestingly, that story stirred up as much outrage as had Stravinsky’s Rite 35 years earlier. The music is a study in primitivism; it should, and was meant to, sound barbaric. Too many modern recordings I’ve heard, like a recent and highly touted one by Jonathan Nott and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra on Tudor, transform the score into something gentrified, as if it has now earned a place in the orchestral canon alongside Mozart and Haydn. Markevitch had it right, and he delivers the goods on this recording in one of the most heart-pounding performances of The Rite of Spring you will ever hear.

Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé too was one of the conductor’s specialties, and just as sensationalized as his portrayal of Stravinsky’s tribal blood-letting is, with equal artistry does Markevitch sensualize Ravel’s French goatherd and shepherdess. No gauzy Impressionistic veil can conceal the amorous passion and sexual tension between the two lovers, whose shyness and innocence are eventually overcome by the chemistry of raging hormones in Markevitch’s pitch-perfect performance.

I was rather surprised to find no reviews of Honegger’s Symphony No. 5, subtitled “Di Tre Re,” in the Fanfare Archive. It’s one of the composer’s more widely recorded works, with a number of fine versions available, including classics by Michel Plasson and Charles Munch. The current live recording with Markevitch is in direct competition with the aforementioned slightly later but still mono Markevitch effort with the Lamoureux Orchestra on Deutsche Grammophon. Unfortunately, I do not have that recording for comparison purposes, but I can tell you that the one at hand is every bit as good, performance-wise, interpretively, and sonically as the Munch with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on RCA, which I do have, and better performance-wise and interpretively, if not quite as sonically wide-spectrum, as the Neeme Järvi with the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra on Chandos, which I also have. The piece is worth getting to know, if you don’t already know it. It’s quite a magnificent score (the “tre re” refers to the three Ds struck on the timpani at the end of each movement), and Markevitch’s reading is deeply satisfying.

More often than not, I end up recommending releases of archival recordings such as this mainly to those who have a particular interest in the conductor or featured artist, but this one is different. The performances are fantastic, and the sound is as good as, if not better than, any number of newly minted recordings I’ve heard. This is an urgent buy recommendation.

First of all, the young French pianist Romain Descharmes (b. 1980) is a very fine artist, possessed of not merely great dexterity, but exceptional style and taste. But more Ravel piano music? Really? The arkivmusic Web site lists 79 versions of the Sonatine, 96 of Gaspard, 100 of the Valse nobles et sentimentales, and, wait for it, 166 spins on the dance floor for La valse, more than half of them in the solo piano configuration. I love this music as much as anyone does, but must admit to no small degree of Ravel fatigue. Descharmes acquits himself well amidst the blistering competition, but as a nit-picking critic (that’s why they pay me the big bucks), I must report some minor instances of over-mannered rhythmic manipulations, mainly in Valses nobles et sentimentales. The Gaspard is on the cool side, but this is not so much a criticism as a way to distinguish Descharmes’s completely effective style from the more animalistic approach of, say, Argerich. The Sonatine is especially lovely, aglow with elegance and lucid texture.

If, by some chance, you need this material in your CD collection, you will not go wrong with this choice. As I have commented before, the Audite label produces some of the best piano sound in the industry, exquisitely balanced and with a natural (not too close) ambience. As for me, I look forward to hearing this promising new talent again soon, in more adventurous material.

This is Volume 11 in Audite’s “Edition Ferenc Fricsay,” a superb, ongoing series dedicated to remastering and restoring to the catalog many of the coveted live and studio mono recordings made by this near legendary conductor, mainly in the early to mid 1950s. His overlapping stereo recordings for Deutsche Grammophon continued up to the time of his death in 1963 at the age of 48.

It’s been said, facetiously, that the Requiem is Verdi’s greatest opera, the implication being that the composer couldn’t tell the difference between a “Libiamo, libiamo ne’ calici” and a “Libera me.” I choose not to believe that of Verdi, but of Rossini, I’m not so sure. For if there is a musical setting of a sacred text that surpasses the incongruity of his Petite Messe solennelle, it would have to be this Stabat mater. And while the score, taken on its own, is not entirely frivolous, it is operatic through and through, and not really in keeping with this most deeply moving hymn to the suffering of the Virgin Mary.

For this performance, Fricsay assembled an all-star, world-class quartet of vocal soloists known for their outstanding work in many of the sacred choral masterpieces by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Cherubini, Bruckner, and Dvořák, as well as for their appearances on the operatic stage. One would expect this broad range of experience and diversity of singing styles to find a happy medium in a reading of Rossini’s Stabat mater, and to convey a modicum of balance between the stile antico, which the seriousness of the text calls for, and the music—“A drinking song under the cross,” the title of the booklet essay calls it (a reference to the Cujus animan gementem)—which is largely at odds with it. And on balance, this is what we get, though without text in hand, one could be excused for mistaking a passage or two for an excerpt from William Tell. Fault lies not with the soloists, choirs, orchestra, or Fricsay who, as was his wont, moves things along at a quickened pace; the liability is entirely Rossini’s.

Peter Uehling’s essay, the crucial points of which seem to jibe with other accounts I’ve read, tells us that the composer began work on the Stabat mater in 1831, but then lost interest after having written six of its 10 movements—1 and 5 through 9. A Spanish cleric and friend, Giuseppe Tadolini, completed the score, which eventually wound up in the hands of a French publisher. Rossini was not pleased to discover this unauthorized publication and decided to offer his own newly completed version to another publisher. By this time Tadolini was dead, but his publisher sued. Eventually, Rossini won the case, and it’s in the composer’s final 1842 version that the work is heard today.

As archival material that documents the accomplishment of one of the great conductors of the 20th century, not to mention the artistry of some of its finest singers, this release will be indispensable to Fricsay collectors. The sound on this disc, however, does not match the excellence of that achieved on Volume 10 of this series, a 1951 studio recording Fricsay made of the Brahms Violin Concerto with Gioconda de Vito, reviewed in 33:2. The current recording sounds a bit constricted, recessed, and muffled in the loudest passages.

It’s hard for me to imagine anyone being truly desperate for a recording of Rossini’s Stabat mater, but if it’s the piece itself you’re interested in, there are quite a few later ones available in far better sound and in performances at least equal to if not superior to this one—Kertész with Lorengar, Minton, Pavarotti, Sotin, and the LSO comes to mind—but again, this is for Fricsay fans and for those collecting the Audite series.

Every review I have seen of a complete set of the Saint-Saëns piano concertos comments on the surprising lack of wider appeal to performers and audiences of this music for all but the Piano Concerto No. 2. I can only add my voice to the choir; this is all wonderful music. The variety of texture, mood, and dramatic structure is really quite remarkable, and the technical quality of the writing ranks with the best of the 19th century. The music does not have the depth of Beethoven and Brahms, it is true, but it is certainly not cold or overly showy. I am especially fond of the Piano Concerto No. 1, with its beautifully prominent writing for the horn. Saint-Saëns got the bum rap in his own day, and continues to in our time, but it is not deserved.

The question becomes not whether or not to own a recording of this music, but which set to buy. Classic recordings by Rogé and Collard are available on budget reissues, and the king of the heap, both interpretively and in terms of expense, is Stephen Hough’s 2002 transversal as a part of Hyperion’s massive Romantic Piano Concerto survey. There are few pianists on the scene today who match his magical combination of virtuosity, elegance, and insight. That said, I am quite smitten by this new release. Anna Malikova is a late product of the mighty Soviet music-making machine, although the empire was crumbling just as she was graduating from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in 1991, where she studied with Lev Naumov. Her playing is bold and colorful, very attuned to the character of the music, which some (including myself) consider hallmarks of the Russian school of pianism. I would have to concede the last degree of nimbleness to Hough, and his set does include another 15 minutes of Saint-Saëns bonbons. But Malikova’s playing is a bit more, well, playful, making this a highly seductive collection. The regional German orchestra plays beautifully under the direction of Thomas Sanderling. Yes, he is the son of Kurt Sanderling, the great German-born conductor who spent most of his career in Russia, where Thomas was born.

The icing on the cake, always with the Audite label, is the recorded sound, which is robust yet naturally balanced. I can really hear the advantage of SACD sound when listening to Audite releases, although the audio is nearly as good on standard CD playback.

With the sole exception of the Goldberg Variations, the Bach keyboard partitas are, in my opinion, Bach’s crowning achievement in keyboard-writing—the remarkable organ music and the even more remarkable WTC (both books) notwithstanding. I have no musical or other explanation for this opinion. My performing heroes for these partitas have been Andras Schiff (piano) and Igor Kipnis (harpsichord). The long promised Murray Perahia traversal was delayed by an injury and recurrent flare-ups involving (I think) his right thumb. Here we have the first installment, and it is absolutely marvelous. Phrasing, clarity of contrapuntal line, dynamics, tempos, and sheer mastery of Bach’s idiom, keyboard and beyond, are incomparable. Sticking my neck out, I further recommend the second installment (Nos. 1, 5, and 6) without having heard it, because it has not even been announced for release.

For my other choices in the list below, reviews can be found in the recent issues 31:3, 31:5, 31:5, 31:5, and 32:1, respectively. The Mozart overtures—facetiously, opera for those who don’t like singing—are a unique collection of 12 of the familiar and the lesser known, performed masterfully. They reveal Mozart’s craftsmanship in the small. The Schubert Lieder—six from the Schwanengesang cycle and eight others—by the young Fischer-Dieskau combine music of unmatched beauty with the youthful voice of the best Lieder singer of our era. The instrumental details in the Brandenburg Concertos are so very clear that you don’t need a score in order to hear every detail. Francescatti, Ormandy, and the Philadelphia Orchestra combine to produce a classic Brahms Violin Concerto unique in its artistry.

This is a recording made from a radio broadcast in Cologne in 1954. The then-new discovery, baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, at age 29 performs Schubert Lieder accompanied by pianists who are very competent but are undistinguished when compared with pianists with whom Fischer-Dieskau collaborated in later years. Fischer-Dieskau’s voice is magnificent and youthful, and, surprisingly, interpretively mature. And, no surprise, he was yet to reach his prime.

The sound quality of this monaural recording does not do the piano justice, resulting in a muddy, slightly blurry sound. The vocal sound, however, has the clarity and presence of a modern recording without, of course, the stereo effect.

There are many paths that I, as a reviewer, can take, so let me choose to compare the 29-year-old Fischer-Dieskau and his very competent accompanists with the 57-year-old Fischer-Dieskau—most mature but a bit past his vocal prime—and his musical partner, Alfred Brendel, who serves not as a mere accompanist but as a supreme Schubert keyboard interpreter of unsurpassed pianistic talent. This is a comparison most conveniently made for the six Schwanengesang songs. In general, the more mature Fischer-Dieskau is less impetuous and less willing to sacrifice vocal quality slightly for musical and poetic expressiveness than his younger self. For example, in Der Atlas on this CD there are sacrifices of pitch for drama in a few spots that you don’t find in Fischer-Dieskau’s later collaboration with Alfred Brendel.

The listener has a unique opportunity here to examine the difference between a pianist of Weissenborn’s very significant abilities and Brendel’s astonishing abilities. It’s unique because pianists like Weissenborn don’t usually record sonatas and concertos to enable such a comparison. I cite three examples. The forte-fortissimos and sforzandos, and their contrasting adjacent measures, in Der Atlas are played exactly so by Weissenborn, but are slightly exaggerated by Brendel—just enough to make them much more effective without ever sacrificing musicality. The diminished sevenths that pervade Die Stadt sound commonplace at Weissenborn’s fingers but are positively eerie at Brendel’s. I can’t explain how Brendel accomplishes this, because at my fingers they would sound like exercises, or worse. Weissenborn’s piano in Die Taubenpost (not numbered “14” in this CD for reasons rooted in editorial history) merely accompanies Fischer-Dieskau, whereas Brendel’s piano sings along with the singer. In sum, Brendel takes many chances and almost always wins, and that condition applies to all of the greatest performers.

The additional eight Lieder cover a variety of styles that represent Schubert’s Lied composition style. Among these styles are the lyric found in An die Musik, the declamatory (which I personally do not like) found in An Schwager Kronos, and the expressive and dramatic found in the great Erlkönig. In the latter, Fischer-Dieskau very effectively and smoothly assumes the role of der Vater and that of der Sohn where they alternately sing their parts.

This is a highly recommended disc for Schubertians and for German Lied fanciers. Where in a Venn diagram these two categories intersect for you, if you don’t own this disc you are missing a chance of a lifetime.

Audite’s Fischer-Dieskau series continues with this disc, which is not only interesting but a winner in every respect. The 1951 Beethoven and 1953 Mahler songs with Hertha Klust on piano make interesting comparisons with his later versions: slower, sensitive to the text, yet less subtle in phrasing and rhythmic variation. What’s interesting is that, here at least, his lower range sounds richer than usual, and he sings a fairly good trill in Lob des hohen Verstandes. On balance, Klust was a serviceable but unimaginative accompanist, which may have something to do with the lack of subtlety in phrasing.

Pride of place, however, goes to the Schumann duets, a dozen of them with wife Julia Varady. They are both in wonderful voice and were clearly enjoying themselves. Cord Garben is a somewhat livelier accompanist than Klust, and the sound quality is first-rate. Of course, these are not among the deepest or most interesting of Schumann’s songs, but they are not without interest either. One revels in their zest and charm, and perhaps because they are lowered in pitch to accommodate Fischer-Dieskau (they were written for soprano and tenor), Varady’s voice has an unaccustomed mellowness of timbre that is a perfect match for her husband. Again, Audite has given us the German texts but no translations.

For those with only a tangential or cursory familiarity with the art of Géza Anda, it may come as somewhat a surprise to hear that he was an acknowledged expert in the music of Schumann and Chopin. Remembered today primarily (in the popular mind) for his recordings of Mozart (especially from the movie Elvira Madigan) and more notably his affinity for Bartók, his inclusion in the pantheon of greats performing Romantic music seems tentative at best; yet it cannot be denied that this aspect of his art has been singularly ignored by the current generation, and his name is rarely mentioned as influential.

This is a sad thing, for Anda has much to contribute to our current understanding of these composers. Hearing the razor-sharp and crystal clear Schumann on these discs, I am surprised once more at his ability to bring a modern sensibility to these works while simultaneously injecting a sense of old world Romanticism that is on par with about anything I have heard from pianists past. In fact, if current research is to be believed (I know, that opens up a whole kettle of sometimes smelly fish), then what the more ascetic players bring to this music may actually be more in line with the way the composers themselves used to play it. But I shall not pigeon-hole anyone into that construct either, being a firm believer that each generation must discover these composers for themselves.

Anda certainly did that, albeit helped by a number of people who provided him with a plentitude of unerring role models: Dohnányi, Kodály, and Weiner at home, and Haskil, Cortot, and Fischer in Paris. Haskil particularly comes to mind as you listen to the perfectly proportioned upper and lower lines of Kreisleriana, for instance. It is always a shocker to hear how many pianists downplay the significance of the bass line in Schumann, which is absolutely critical in any legitimate performance. Anda ignores none of it, and knows its importance, as did his friend and colleague Clara Haskil; their performances of this music are remarkably similar and equally illuminating, Anda having the edge in conciseness while Haskil demonstrates the buoyancy inherent in Schumann’s work.

The Chopin is also well worth rediscovery. I do not think that this composer spoke to Anda in the same way as some others, certainly not Schumann. The Romantic ethos is still there, but Chopin was a miniaturist in a way that Schumann rejected, and his short-burst works do not allow the performer as much time to develop an emotional argument. Anything the performer wants to say must be prepared completely before the first note sounds, and sometimes I feel that Anda needs more of a warm-up period. But more often he is fully prepped for the challenge, and when that happens, as in most of the preludes, we are in for some magical moments upheld by a technique that is second to none.

Audite presents these pieces in wonderful mono sound, the type that initially made some people skeptical of stereo, clean, clear, and almost—almost—sounding two-channel. This is a great tribute (Volume 3 of 4) to a vastly underrated artist, and an early candidate for this year’s Want List.

I keep hearing all the hoopla about the troubles the classical recording industry is in, but for the life of me, with 1,500 new releases coming out every year, and so many smaller companies picking up where the majors have sadly (and irresponsibly) left off, I wonder if we all just need to readjust our thinking a little. This year was particularly troubling for me in that so many excellent releases made it even more difficult to choose just five, and especially with so many superb Super Audio discs offered. I must make note of three very honorable mentions that just got nudged out: Rachel Barton Pine’s exquisitely rendered “American Virtuosa,” a Maud Powell tribute; Vladimir Godár’s refreshing and heartfelt Mater; and Charles Bruffy’s excellent mixed choir (Kansas City and Phoenix) SACD recording “Eternal Rest.” Sorry folks, no cigar, but no shame either, as your discs have been wearing my player out.

But pride of place has to go to one of the finest song cycles of the past two centuries, and a wonderful tribute to a great artist, Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs. This gorgeous music affected me deeply, and I can think of no finer memorial to the composer’s wife Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who sings with unaffected delicacy and a profoundly hopeful spirit.

The discovery of “lost tapes” in Sony’s vaults led to the idea of a recreation of Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale, the composer conducting his original 1961 Suite along with the resurfaced 1967 instrumental interludes, freshly overdubbed with Jeremy Iron’s best-ever narration newly translated into English by Jeremy Sams. This is a spectacular recording, surely definitive, even if DG ever decides to reissue the Boston Chamber Players/Sir John Gielgud recording. Robert Craft’s reading of the Symphonies only adds to the desirability of this disc.

Jac van Steen and his Winterthur Orchestra, long accustomed to music of the Second Viennese School, have gone out and recorded the most beautiful disc of music by the three biggies ever. This is the disc to buy if you, or a friend, don’t like these fellows. The Berg songs alone are worth the price of the disc, with the sumptuous sound of three composers who know how to orchestrate beaming through your SACD setup with unparalleled clarity and sweetness. And you have the added pleasure of noting that if this release doesn’t convert you to their music, nothing ever will.

We seem to be in the middle of a Schumann fest as of late, and that is a good thing to me. The folks at Audite have openly stated that they don’t release recordings unless they feel the artist has something new to say, and Nicolas Bringuier certainly does. This is some of the most ingratiating Schumann on the market, and the SACD sound is truly spectacular, vibrant, warm, and a balm to the ears. Even if this duplicates repertoire in your collection, you will want to sample this, and Super Audio nuts like me will feel compelled to purchase it.

To wind up, this last record took me completely by surprise. Having long known of the work of Ricardo Morales of the Philadelphia Orchestra, I had no idea he came from such a richly talented family. Brother Jesús has laid down tracks of the Saint-Saëns and Lalo cello concertos that are intelligent, passionate, technically adept, and thrillingly adventurous. Brother Jaime conducts the Bulgarians who are somehow thinking they are the Berlin Philharmonic, and play accordingly. Centaur captures it all in excellent sound, and the result is a disc of music that I thought had probably run its course. Not so. This one’s a winner all around.

These are early broadcast recordings made by West German Radio in the mid 1950s, when Fischer-Dieskau was about 30 years old. This 1954 effort represents the singer’s first recording of the cycle of 12 songs set to poems by Justinus Kerner. He was to record it three years later with Günther Weissenborn, and with Christoph Eschenbach in 1977. A 1959 live Salzburg performance with Gerald Moore was also issued. In the case of Liederkreis, containing some of Schumann’s greatest songs, Fischer-Dieskau gave this broadcast production in 1955, but had already made a commercial recording in 1954 with Gerald Moore. (That EMI recording is available on the “Great Recordings of the Century” series, catalog no. 62771.) And he made later recordings of it with Eschenbach and with Alfred Brendel.

In some ways, the young Fischer-Dieskau is the most satisfying to listen to. While a strong case can be made that he deepened his interpretations over time, an equally strong case can be made that the effort and thought he put into those interpretations became increasingly evident, resulting in overly artful and even precious singing. There is none of that here—listening to these performances is pure unalloyed pleasure. The voice is smooth, flexible, solidly produced at soft and loud dynamic levels. His ability to float soft tones is almost without equal among German baritones, and here he does so with a naturalness and ease that is simply engrossing, and he does it when it fits the flow of the music perfectly. Nothing seems applied externally—it all comes from within.

If you set this disc against his 1954 EMI recording of Liederkreis, you’ll hear very similar singing and more imaginative piano-playing from EMI (Gerald Moore vs. Günter Weissenborn). But taken on its own merits, this is a spectacular performance. And the only comparably early recording of the Kerner cycle is with Weissenborn instead of Hertha Klust. Klust is more to my taste—lingering over the music when appropriate, as opposed to Weissenborn’s more efficient approach. This broadcast, if you consider it to be a recording, serves as the first complete recording of Schumann’s op. 35 cycle. (Otherwise, Fischer-Dieskau’s 1957 version with Weissenborn fills that role.)

To some degree, I suppose how the enthusiasm behind my recommendation of this disc affects you will depend on how devoted you are to Lieder and on what other recordings you already own. If you own Fischer-Dieskau’s earliest recordings of both of these cycles, it is probably a needless duplication to get this. But if you do not, I can very strongly recommend this as a set of performances that will leave you astonished at the combination of vocal, musical, dramatic, and intellectual skills demonstrated. The monaural sound is at the highest level of mid-1950s broadcast quality, and Kurt Malisch’s essay on the music and these performances is way above the norm in insight and quality, and it is well translated. No texts or translations are included.