Here is treasure indeed to add to our precious storehouse of Popp recordings. Recorded in Munich in 1983, this recital catches the well-remembered soprano in fine voice and at the top of interpretative form in an intelligent programme devoted to folk-settings or quasi folk-songs by Brahms and Mahler. To these pieces the singer and that other late, lamented performer, Geoffrey Parsons, bring just the right balance between the artless and the sophisticated: in other words they bring all their considered artistry to bear on basically unassuming pieces without ever overloading them with too much conscious interpretation.
Though she is predictably charming in the lighter, teasing songs, Popp is particularly affecting in the sad songs of loss and/or yearning as regards the loved one, where her peculiarly plaintive timbre comes very much into its own. In Brahms settings such as “Sehnsucht” or “Es steht ein Lind” you sense the inner feelings of the bereft protagonist, and in two of Mahler’s most affecting early songs, “Nicht wiedersehen!” and “Erinnerung”, Popp emphasizes key phrases with an added tranche of intensity, in the final couplet of the first, and at “Die Liebe immer wieder!” in the second.
There are other versions of these songs, but few I would select above them though perhaps Fischer-Dieskau and Schwarzkopf in the Brahms Deutsche Volkslieder set (two discs) trump Popp in “Wie komm’ich denn zur Tur herein?” by virtue of doing this hasty exchange between eager lovers as a two-hander. The recording is full and clear. The quality and the super-budget price console one for the short measure.'