Mahler: Rückert-Lieder (5 songs, complete)

“If you thought Mahler's intense late Romanticism was outside Price's range, think again. She is convincing in irony and tragedy.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2011 *****

“Henschel's nimble baritone copes well with the bolder early Wunderhorn songs” BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 ***

“there's no-one...who lifts the phrases so beguilingly (and without a baton) as does Abbado. You'll never see a first movement done with bigger smiles or more wide-eyed wonder, nor the poco adagio heaven inflected as artistically as here from the master's goodlooking love-in orchestra, filmed with ingenuity as always by Michael Beyer's camera team.” BBC Music Magazine, April 2011 ****

“There are innumerable incidental beauties from all sections: the woodwind nothing short of sublime, the brass tactfully reticent, the strings perhaps most remarkable of all with their radiant pianissimos...Kožená sings with consummate technical control and intellectual understanding...Here is profoundly affecting artistry which for once lives up to the hype.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2011

“The most remarkable thing of all is the sense of intimacy that he achieves: this is Mahler conducting of the greatest insight, matched by playing of the highest quality, matched by pacing of the highest quality...I can't think of any other filmed performance of this symphony that I'd rather hear and watch...This is a DVD to cherish.” International Record Review, March 2011

“[Schäfer's] performances exude the sense of discovery of a wide range in individual emotions that runs through these songs; her tonal qualities are admirable and she is excellently balanced with the orchestra, which plays outstandingly well for her.” International Record Review, July/August 2010

“Her performance of the Leibestod is an object lesson in engagement with the text, sensuality and controlled power.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2008

“What a revelation this disc actually turns out to be. Lott's voice brings wonderful subtlety and intensity to the music, Isolde's death scene in particular.” Classic FM Magazine

“The Schumann Quartet's pianist, Christian Favre, has made these clear, practical transcriptions (rather than arrangements, the bookletnote stresses) inspired by Chausson's Chansonperpetuelle, and with a view to adding to the chamber music literature from the Romantic world of song. So expect a scaled-down report on the works concerned rather than Schoenberg's interventionist way with Johann Strauss or Brahms, or the risk-taking panache of Liszt's operatic adaptations.
Not the least virtue of the exercise is that we get Dame Felicity Lott in repertoire she might otherwise not have attempted. Her performance of the Liebestod – or 'Verklärung' as we should call it – is such an object lesson in engagement with the text, sensuality and controlled power that one might imagine the late Carlos Kleiber (whose favourite Marschallin she was) contemplating a further recording of the opera with her.
The Wesendoncks have a similar sensual (and lean) intelligence, devoid of the stuffy Victorian abstractions that Mathilde's dreadful poetry can often produce in performance. And, if this is not the ideal-est voice for the darker corners of the Rückert-Lieder, you'll need to hear what Lott makes of the poems. The Tristan Prelude is fine too; it's just that it doesn't have a voice part.
Good recordings, and 100 per cent worth it for the singing.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“I have never heard him sing better...He was at the top of his game....a recital that should serve as a model.” The New York Sun