Breathtaking
A. Zemach | Seattle | 08/17/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is surely one of the most beautiful CDs I own. Ameling imbues the music with such emotion, she easily takes the listener with her any place she wants to go. Unlike some other lieder CDs I have, the songs here are easy to connect to: from the very first listen I knew I was in for something special. If you derive even the slightest pleasure from the human voice, you must get this CD!"
Thoroughly delightful
David N Levy | 01/10/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I can't claim to be a trained critic, but these are surely some of the most beautiful songs ever written, and Ameling's performance seems worthy of them. Highly expressive without excess, her voice seems perfectly to capture everything from the gay to the pathetic."
Brilliant!
Warren P. Reier | Berkeley, CA USA | 08/18/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"My wife and I were privileged to hear her in person a number of times. We would leave her concerts in a daze, with tears running down our faces.
Her dark, tempestuous "Die junge Nonne" with its gorgeous allelujah, her passionate and bewitched "Gretchen am Spinnrade", her fresh and joyous "Im Grünen", are very nearly indescribable. It is music (and literature!) of the very highest order.
There is no one even remotely like her. Her pure, almost vibrato-less voice is at the command of peerless musicianship and profound understanding of the text! "You will fall in love with the human voice all over again," as someone once said of a certain beautiful Dowland recording.
There are many people who sing Schubert with intelligence and taste; there are many fine voices among them--but Elly Ameling is incomparable!!"