"Vier Letzte Lieder"

[Pianophile]

I've just picked up a very reasonably priced BBC Legends disc of Elisabeth Söderström with Dorati live in 1976 at the RFH. I'm really bowled over by this recording. For me, it's up there with the Popp/Tennstedt version. Until now, I was only familiar with Söderström's version with Richard Armstrong and the WNO orchestra on EMI on vinyl, caught rather late in her career. Sad she wasn't asked to make a studio recording at her peak, but the BBC legends disc more than makes up for this. Wonderful Ravel Sheherezade to boot.

[Barbirollians]

- I've adored the sound of her singing ever since I bought a cheap LP of "highlights" from the Karajan-led Schöpfung when I was fourteen - hitherto, I'd never suspected that Haydn's music could send a thrill to my loins in the way that she soars up to the top Bb towards the end of "Nun bent die flur das frische Grun".

Her Porgi Amor with Bohm - desert island stuff .

[Barbirollians]

13 pages and nobody has mentioned this outstanding recording tut tut

Jurinac on EMI References with Fritz Busch in Stockholm live in 1951

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlZWeXPmL3A

As AB said in his Gramophone review

"The performance of Strauss's Four Last Songs is unquestionably the most natural, most sincere, most beautiful ever to have been recorded"

[Richard Tarleton]

I've just picked up a very reasonably priced BBC Legends disc of Elisabeth Söderström with Dorati live in 1976 at the RFH. I'm really bowled over by this recording. For me, it's up there with the Popp/Tennstedt version. Until now, I was only familiar with Söderström's version with Richard Armstrong and the WNO orchestra on EMI on vinyl, caught rather late in her career. Sad she wasn't asked to make a studio recording at her peak, but the BBC legends disc more than makes up for this. Wonderful Ravel Sheherezade to boot.

See #3

I heard her sing it in the RFH 3 years before that, with the Philharmonia under Hans Scmidt-Isserstedt. A lovely voice - and she was a lovely person too.

[Cockney Sparrow]

At the Prom last night, the BBCSO Barbican season programme booklet was set out among the seats. I haven't looked in detail at it, but 13 Feb 2017 caught my eye ' Jonas Kaufman sings the Strauss Four last Songs (and, also, some others - unspecified). The blurb acknowledges they are rarely performed by a male voice - "But they're in safe hands with the world's finest tenor".

It also says its part of The Kaufman Residency at the Barbican.

[Tetrachord]

At the Prom last night, the BBCSO Barbican season programme booklet was set out among the seats. I haven't looked in detail at it, but 13 Feb 2017 caught my eye ' Jonas Kaufman sings the Strauss Four last Songs (and, also, some others - unspecified). The blurb acknowledges they are rarely performed by a male voice - "But they're in safe hands with the world's finest tenor".

It also says its part of The Kaufman Residency at the Barbican.

I've seen Kaufman sing at the Musikverein - Wagner with Thielemann and Dresdners behind him. Wonderful singer and such a handsome hunk.

[Richard Tarleton]

Well, Tetra, have you (with reference to your OP, and I may have missed the answer somewhere up above) chosen your new outstanding recording yet?

[Tetrachord]

Well, Tetra, have you (with reference to your OP, and I may have missed the answer somewhere up above) chosen your new outstanding recording yet?

No, I haven't yet. But I'll keep going. There seem to be positives and negatives to some performances. Am veering towards the Tennstedt/Popp!!

[Barbirollians]

Pedantic no doubt but is it not Kaufmann ?

[Tetrachord]

Pedantic no doubt but is it not Kaufmann ?

Indeed it is!! Preoccupied right at the moment preparing my 2.5 hour lecture for tomorrow morning on "Figured Bass" - still work to do and it's dinner time!!!

[Lordgeous]

No, I haven't yet. But I'll keep going. There seem to be positives and negatives to some performances. Am veering towards the Tennstedt/Popp!!

Purchased it recently. Beautiful singing but it didnt move me in the way that Scwarzkopf and Janovich do.

[Barbirollians]

Purchased it recently. Beautiful singing but it didnt move me in the way that Scwarzkopf and Janovich do.

I will just say it again ! Jurinac . Schwarzkopf's feeling for the text plus singing as beautiful as that of Janowitz

[vinteuil]

I will just say it again ! Jurinac ...

... but which?

Jurinac with Fritz Busch and the Stockholm Phil or Jurinac with Malcolm Sargent and the BBC Symphony Orch???

[gurnemanz]

... but which?

Jurinac with Fritz Busch and the Stockholm Phil or Jurinac with Malcolm Sargent and the BBC Symphony Orch???

Alan Blyth in Gramophone on Busch/Stockholm:

Never on any commercial or 'private' recording have I heard the lovely quality of Jurinac's voice as I recall it in the theatre or concert hall, caught as it is here. And when you come to think of it the voice might have been made for this music. The inner glow, the spirituality, the sheer ease of the singing are quite remarkable. Jurinac fills the big climaxes of the third and fourth songs with the kind of rapt, emotional intensity they deserve and catches the autumnal regrets of all four songs unerringly, yet it is all done without any kind of effort, any suggestions of 'giving a performance'.

[Barbirollians]

... but which?

Jurinac with Fritz Busch and the Stockholm Phil or Jurinac with Malcolm Sargent and the BBC Symphony Orch???

The latter is excellent the former magnificent and my favourite recording of all .On EMI References it comes with some lovely opera excerpts too.