Brahms: Ruhe, Süßliebchen (No. 9 from Deutsche Volkslieder, WoO 33)

“Peter Serkin brings special qualities to the Brahms group… while his delicacy in Debussy's Trois Chansons de Bilitis is magical. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson equals him in her musical insight and in her complete security of approach to her own instrument. Her huge potential range of dynamics allows her to shape each song individually, while her poised understating of Pierre Louÿ's Debussyan texts makes them infinitely suggestive.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2009 ****

“Recorded at the Ravinia Festival two years before her death, this recital of ecstatic, grave and elegant love songs is a testament to the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s interpretive intelligence...Hunt Lieberson’s intoxicating mezzo slides through several centuries of musical styles…” The Independent on Sunday, 22nd February 2009

“She truly was one of the great singers of our time… what we hear now reaffirms it. The performance of the Lucretia cantata alone would be sufficient. …Hunt Lieberson brings nobility to the full range of emotions and … an extraordinary sense of identifications with the suffering woman. The voice itself was a noble instrument: warm, full-bodied and seamless in its passage over the vocal registers.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2009

“This heart-rending recording commemorates one of the few truly great singers of our time – the American mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson who died from breast cancer in 2006 at the age of 52. Like Kathleen Ferrier, whose fate she shared, Hunt Lieberson's voice has a distinctive viola-ish timbre which made it peculiarly suited to the expression of deep and melancholy emotion. In this overwhelmingly intense live recital, sensitively accompanied by Peter Serkin, she sings Brahms and Mozart lieder, Handel's dramatic cantata Lucrezia, Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis, and an almost unbearably moving account of the spiritual Deep River. It's hard to listen without weeping.” The Telegraph, 7th April 2009 *****

“The American mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson gave this recital two years before she died in 2006. It shows this revered artist at her ardent and emotional best. She always prized the spontaneity of live performance above all and this CD captures her vitality and warmth, and her audible rapport with an audience.” The Observer, 5th April 2009

“Particularly important is the performance by its dedicatee of the Berkeley cycle, Ferrier's first surviving recorded collaboration with Barbirolli. Her singing is as balm to the ear, as is her attention to the meaning of the texts of these lovely settings. From a quite different tradition come the three quartets by Brahms. Ferrier's solo contributions are more marked but it is the euphony of the four voices and the ardour in which they project Brahms's settings that is most enjoyable.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2006