This CD brings back happy memories of della Casa’s rare recitals at London’s Royal Festival Hall in the 1950s. Probably because Schwarzkopf and Seefried were always in attendance at Salzburg, della Casa made only a sole appearance in Lieder; this is here rescued from oblivion through the efforts of Gottfried Kraus. Apparently someone at Austrian Radio with a mania for tidiness had cut up the tapes into their individual items and filed them as such. They have now been scrupulously reassembled in the original order.
The work has been more than worthwhile. Della Casa sings with all the keen, pure tone and unaffected style for which she is famed. The sheer beauty of her singing is immediately apparent in her Schubert group, and in the final song, Gretchen am Spinnrade, she begins to evince a deep understanding of the importance of textual emphasis – as at “vergehen sollt” – in achieving creative tension: this is as desperate a portrayal of Marguerite’s longing as one is likely to encounter. In Brahms’s serene Feldeinsamkeit the underlining of the third syllable of “Himmelsblaue” and the hushed treatment of “Mir ist, als ob ich langst gestorben bin” (one of the most heartstopping moments in all his Lieder) shows an ideal understanding of interpretation. In Von ewiger Liebe della Casa nicely differentiates between the voices of the boy and girl, and once more finds the key word “unsere”, in the last line, to define the song’s meaning.
After making obeisance to the work of her fellow-countryman Schoeck, who had just died, she changed course altogether for three of Ravel’s Chants populaires, accenting her French idiomatically and with subtle meaning, especially in the sorrowful “Chanson italienne”, where the last “mon amour” is searing. Her Strauss readings are of course famous and she recorded the songs given here elsewhere, but on a live occasion there’s that extra frisson of feeling, most notably in Befreit, a song she made very much her own. Hat gesagt and Schlechtes Wetter are superior to Schwarzkopf’s recordings simply because della Casa is just as amusing without resort to arch tones.
The two Wolf encores are a delight – note the smile in the voice in Der Gartner and the liberating ecstasy of Er ist’s. Sandor is a most sympathetic partner, though too backwardly placed. Although the recording of the voice is close, leading to a few moments of discomfort on loud notes, this is a recital not to be missed.
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