Mozart/Mussorgsky/ Liszt

COMPOSERS: Mozart/Mussorgsky/ Liszt
LABELS: RCAVictor Gold Seal
WORKS: Arias; The Nursery; Three Petrarch Sonnets
PERFORMER: Margaret Price (soprano); ECO, LPO/James Lockhart (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: 09026 61635 2 ADD (1970-75)
Though the title is ‘Margaret Price Sings Mozart’, the most remarkable piece of singing is of Liszt’s Petrarch Sonnets, to which the Welsh soprano brings a commanding technique and emotional largesse on the grandest of scales. Mussorgsky’s song-cycle The Nursery is creditably done, with the interpretative problem of an adult acting a child effectively surmounted. Price’s reputation as a Mozartian does not quite disguise the fact that many of her heroines sound much the same: but she gives a superior account of Cherubino’s ‘Voi che sapete’ while Donna Anna’s ‘Non mi dir’ is effortless. The recording is unflattering, with the voice placed too far forward. George Hall