Brahms: Heimweh, Op. 63 No. 8

“Holl's true bass register resonates eloquently with this programme of very serious songs...Holl has the ability to draw the listener in...For the Four Serious Songs themselves, Holl brings a deep sense of empathetic humanity to the live, deeply felt and thoughtfully reasoned inner monologues which he makes of them.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2012 ****

“Holl fields a bass-baritone of slightly grizzled nobility, with impressive sonorous depth...he catches all the terrible nihilism and life-weariness of the first two songs and the opening of the third...Johnson's fastidiously textured playing, like his detailed commentaries, is always illuminating...But be prepared for a protracted Brahmsian gloomfest.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2012

“Holl's voice, reminiscent of Fischer-Dieskau's but rather more of a real bass...is rich, true and resonant. He uses it simply, without self-conscious artifice, and the result is some very beautiful singing. Johnson's accompeniment is always skilled and perceptive...This disc, while the whole recital has notable integrity and quality, would be worth having for [the Four Serious Songs] alone.” International Record Review, September 2012

“Holl, here approaching his mid-sixties, is still a flexible and nuanced singer with the ability to lighten the tone when appropriate. In spite of a long operatic career with often heavy roles - he has been a regular at Bayreuth since 1996 - the voice is largely unscathed and the tone noble...[Johnson] is the ever-flexible partner in what is a duo of equal merits.” MusicWeb International, January 2013

“[Holl is] dark-toned, at times to the point of grittiness, and you might find your admiration for the emotional truth of his singing offset by moments of unwieldiness and an occasional pulse in his tone. It works best if you listen selectively...The effect is awesome, but makes for difficult listening.” The Guardian, 13th September 2012 ***

“A moving Brahms Four Serious Songs from a young and physically impassioned Fischer-Dieskau, and a fascinatingly exploratory Dichterliebe from 1957, both incomparably accompanied.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2012 *****

“Fischer-Dieskau is a superb interpreter of the cycle” Gramophone Magazine (Dichterliebe)

“this is a masterly performance, a towering interpretation of these dark, noble songs” Gramophone Magazine (Brahms: Four Serious Songs)

“Fischer-Dieskau is splendid in the furious little Hahm setting, Kein Haus, keine Heimat, the shortest of all Brahms’s songs, and gives a ravishing account of Feldeinsamkeit. … [His] performance is clearly among the greatest” Gramophone Magazine (Brahms)

“Listening to these Brahms songs culled from BBC broadcasts one realises just why Dame Janet's reputation continues to remain so high and why so many of her successors don't quite match her standards. To every song here, familiar or unfamiliar, she brings her special ability of making it her own and reaching to its heart. It's an almost uncanny gift, and not one easy to explain, but it makes every song in this programme momentous. Wondrous is the sustained half-voice with which she invests Nachtwandler with its intimate, sad feeling.
Then there's the outpouring of joy that is Meine Liebe ist grün to which she brings the most lustrous tone and an outgoing manner, and finally the gentle sense of fun, never overdone, which she brings to the very familiar VergeblichesStändchen.
If Brahms had written no other songs than Feldeinsamkeit, Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht and Von ewiger Liebe, he would surely be hailed as a great Lieder composer. Baker obviously understands their astonishing high quality. The first is sung, as it should be, with a kind of inner wonder, each amazing line given its full due. In the second, a Liebestod avant la lettre, she sings with the proper impassioned feeling, while the last, a happier statement of eternal love, is sung with the rugged conviction that always showed the singer at her very best.
Lush and Hamburger, especially the latter, are fully cognisant of what to do with Brahms's intricate writing for the piano. The sound is admirable, catching early Baker in full flow.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This is an important disc and one that will give great pleasure since it contains so much fine and deeply committed singing. It’s certainly a mandatory purchase for all admirers of Brahms’s lieder or of Dame Janet Baker.” MusicWeb International

“what singing: what a voice, what beauty of line, variety of colour, incisive diction and unforced mastery of the whole difficult art of Lieder…the disc is a feast.” The Times

"If you enjoy Lieder and/or the sound of a male singing voice, this extraordinary set belongs in your collection. It preserves the art of one of the greatest singers of this century, and is extremely well produced, with superb transfers, an intelligent booklet complete with texts and translations, and discs which are generously filled. This is, in fact, a model for the reissuing of important historical material, and it is one of Music & Arts's most significant achievements." Henry Fogel, in Fanfare