Strauss, R: Ein schones war (from Ariadne auf Naxos)

“Isokoski can match her great predecessors in her breath control. It’s good to have a souvenir of her distinguished Marschallin and her Madeleine...With Kamu’s Helsinki orchestra providing a lush underlay, Isokoski soars in the ecstatic Hölderlin settings.” Sunday Times, 30th September 2012

“The beauty of Isokoski's singing, with its even, lustrous tone and quiet stylishness, almost goes without saying, and those qualities are at their most beguiling in the Three Hymns. The technical quality is just as high in the opera extracts, but those performances seem to lack a vital dimension.” The Guardian, 20th December 2012 ****

“The main attraction of the programme is the Drei Hymnen, which do not come round in recordings very often...As each of her three Straussian heroines, she embodies a very touching, human vulnerability.” Gramophone Magazine, January 2013

“Whichever are your preferred Four Last Songs, this performance will equal them. The excerpts from Arabella and Ariadne are just as impressive.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2012 *****

“Renée Fleming's first recording of the Last Songs, made in 1996 (on RCA), was distinctly mixed. Here Christian Thielemann is a much more natural Straussian, powerful and luxuriant, and Fleming's voice has gained in distinctiveness and diction, to splendidly dramatic effect, often with a real 'float' at the top.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2008 ****

“As Fleming explains in a note, the Four Last Songs has become the work that she has performed most often. Throughout the four songs, Fleming not only lavishes every resource of tonal richness at her command, but she seems to be urging all sorts of extra details from the text. The sound is stupendous, Fleming's voice complemented by the Munich Orchestra, with Thielemann bringing out every detail in Strauss's nostalgic orchestration.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2008

“[Thielemann] gives her voice space to soar and swoop in its illimitable fashion, but refuses to indulge her much-discussed habit of dropping consonants half the time...this is a strikingly fretful interpretation that contemplates mortality with profound unease as well as resignation...Elsewhere, she gives a ravishing account of Verführung and the finest performance of Winterweihe I can think of.” The Guardian, 10th October 2008 ****

“[Fleming's] voice is perfectly suited to [these 'magical late songs'] demands, less of range than of tender, expressive feeling…a must for more than merely Straussians” Anthony Holden, The Observer, 7th September 2008

“After giving choice recitals of Verdi and Wagner, Varady turned her attention to Strauss, and once again the results are for the most part rewarding.
The final scene of Salome, under the watchful eye of Varady's husband, Fischer-Dieskau, has the perfection of pitch and phrase one expects of this singer, as well as an expected acuity for the meaning of the text. Perhaps, away from the theatre in a part she never undertook on stage, the absolute conviction of such great interpreters as Cebotari, Welitsch and Rysanek is absent, but not by much.
The two almost consecutive solos of Ariadne benefit from shapely, poised singing, ever obedient to the score, although occasionally one misses the creamier tones that Lisa della Casa (DG) and Gundula Janowitz (DG video, and EMI) brought to the part. As Danae, Varady seems a shade tentative and vocally out of sorts. There need be no reservations about the final scene of Capriccio, in which she catches ideally Countess Madeleine's emotional perplexity as she tries (unsuccessfully) to choose between her poet and musician admirers.
Both her identification with the role and her execution of Strauss's operatic farewell to his beloved soprano voice are near-ideal. Fischer- Dieskau, endearingly, sings the short part of the Haushofmeister. However, his conducting, although sensibly paced, sometimes errs on the side of caution. As a whole, this CD nicely complements Fleming's Strauss concert on Decca, the two discs offering a compendium of the composer's writing for the soprano voice he loved so much.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“this wide-ranging collection of excerpts contains some of the most magnificent Strauss singing in years. The wonder is that any soprano can range so wide, while producing the most beautiful,full and even stream of sound” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ***