Richard Strauss

“Best known as a Metropolitan diva in Verdi, Puccini ad Ponchielli roles, the Croatian soprano is captured rather late here in the song repertoire, including some of her native folk songs.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2008 ***

“Ricarda Merbeth, a regular Marschallin in Vienna and exponent of other big Strauss roles in Europe, has also been Bayreuth's Elisabeth for the past six years – just as Pauline de Ahna, Strauss's wife and first muse of song, once was.
There's something both idiomatic and old-fashioned about these performances. Here is neither the ample, creamy sound of a Jessye Norman nor the studied, polished art of the Schwarzkopf/ Legge camp nor the quasi-vocalise of a Janowitz, but rather a welcome, word-conscious directness and emotive agility that is natural and refreshing, and reminiscent of an earlier school of Strausssinging – Lotte Lehmann, Viorica Ursuleac.
The Op 68 Brentano Lieder of 1918 – never programmed enough – are hair-raisingly difficult for the singer in terms of both tessitura and line in their original piano versions. Given in the complex (and quite weighty) orchestrations to which Strauss devoted much energy in later life, they become even more demanding. 'Lied der Frauen wenn die Männer im Kriege sind' ('Women's Song when the Men are away at War') is eight minutes-plus of high drama in instrumental clothing that deliberately harks back to Salome, Elektra and Die Frau ohne Schatten (it's also highly possible that the events of 1933, the year of this version, impinged on the emotional temperature).
The five other songs in the group become enticing orchestral children of their contempo- rary operas Daphne and Capriccio. Merbeth is supremely well prepared and on top of this repertoire, and the Weimar orchestra, cliché to say but true, have the sound of Strauss's music still in their blood. Halász, a regular collaborator of the soprano's, beds down in the tempi of 'Im Abendrot' a little too much but his singer can more than handle that. Natural, unplush sound, aptly matching the music-making.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Merbeth is supremely well prepared and on top of this repertoire, and the Weimar orchestra, cliché to say but true, have the sound of Strauss's music still in their blood.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2008

“excellent vocal and lyrical presentation. An 'Erlkönig' brilliantly graduated in terms of colour becomes the highlight of the CD” Das Opernglas

“If there is a thrilling story to be told, such as 'Gretchen am Spinnard' or even more so in 'Erlkönig', Waltraud Meier launches into the dramatics of the story, and just as she is on the stage performing opera, she is a pure actress.” Frankfurter Neue Presse

“Meier... is accompanied by Joseph Breinl, a young pianist whose interpretation already possesses a wonderful maturity. He accentuates the orchestral side of Schubert’s piano setting just as colourful as the intimate chamber musical moods so that... Schubert’s songs are rendered in an outrageously dense and tonally beautiful way. […] Finally, in the evergreen "Zuneigung", Waltraud Meier shows the wide range of her voice, which even in extremely slow passages retains its inner cohesion.” klassik.com

“great potential and presentation possibilities […] Each word of the poetry is felt with emotion and meaning through the music. Schubert’s 'Erlkönig' is in itself an experience, in how Meier interprets the roles of the King of the Elves and also of the little boy trembling with fear.” Main-Post

“Accompanied by Joseph Breinl, who provides a richly colourful interpretation, in the piano version by Wolf and Roth, she makes Strauss’s "Vier letzten Lieder" the high point of the whole-hearted and exciting recital, a genre in which she has much experience. […] She almost makes mini-operas out of the songs, using the whole spectrum of theatrical colours right up to the dramatic scene of Schubert’s 'Erlkönig'” Opernwelt