Mozart, Wagner, Weber & Schubert

COMPOSERS: Mozart,Wagner,Weber & Schubert
LABELS: DG Double
ALBUM TITLE: Collection: Gundula Janowitz Portrait
WORKS: Songs and Arias by Mozart, Wagner, Weber & Schubert
PERFORMER: Gundula Janowitz (soprano), Irwin Gage (piano)Vienna SO/Wilfried Boettcher; Berlin State Opera Orchestra/ Ferdinand Leitner
CATALOGUE NO: 447 352-2 ADD(1967/78)

A recital comprising Mozart concert arias (not the obvious ones), chunks of Wagner (Tannhäuser, Lohengrin and Rienzi), excerpts from Weber’s Freischütz and Oberon and miscellaneous Schubert lieder (‘The Trout’ and ‘Ave Maria’ among them) may lack coherence as a programme, but, as a vehicle for Gundula Janowitz’s supreme talent, it makes a fitting tribute. Recorded mostly in 1967, when her soprano was at its creamiest and most beautiful, this is evidence of just how focused and versatile a singer she was: seamlessly controlled in the Mozart, thrillingly expansive in the Wagner, delicately coloured in the Weber, and bright but burnished in the Schubert. If only there’d been room for some Strauss. Claire Wrathall