Beautiful
Howard G Brown | Port St. Lucie, FL USA | 01/06/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is easily the most beautiful of Walter's recordings of Das Lied -- it may be the most beautiful recording, period. The quality of the sound is remarkably fine, thanks to Pearl, and the voices! I realize that Ferrier was a singer dear to Walter's heart. As a singer herself, my late wife adored Ferrier's artistry, but Kerstin Thorborg's voice simply floats and soars through these songs like some rare and exquisite bird, and Charles Kullman was a supurb tenor for this music. His performance was unmatched until Fritz Wunderlich's excellent recording with Klemperer.
The pre-war Vianna Philharmonic is balm to the ears, and the disc is programmed in the manner of a concert, beginning with the Adegietto, followed by the lovely Ruckert Lied, and concluding with Das Lied von der Erde.
This disc is a steal at the price offered, and a valuable document of a period in its eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute: Vienna, 1936-1938."