On one of Walter Legge’s first forays to Vienna after the war, in 1947, he recorded the Liebeslieder with the distinguished singers listed above to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Brahms’s death; now here it is, at last reissued on CD, to mark the centenary of the same event. It wears its years lightly: a euphonious quartet (Hotter smooth and expressive on the bottom line, Seefried tender, intimate on the top), sure as an ensemble, individual in solos and well balanced by Douglas Larter with idiomatic pianists, who offer three of the Waltzes, Op. 39 as a bonus.
Ten years earlier, EMI recorded the same work in Paris under Boulanger’s direction. This recording has earned a reputation both as a rarity and for its delicacy of execution. It’s a faster, lighter reading than its Viennese successor, four singers informally taking part in front of a piano in a salon as it were, but less idiomatic as regards German pronunciation and treatment of the waltz rhythms. Beside the Viennese, it can sound etiolated, but it has a true period flavour to enjoy on its own account, in particular the contributions of the young Cuenod.
In absolute terms the two versions come up against the special merits of the 1952 Edinburgh Festival set with Seefried again, Ferrier, Patzak and Curzon as one of the pianists, a unique occasion caught on the wing, and the excellent modern version with a prize quartet headed by Edith Mathis. All I can say is that we’re lucky to be able to hear them all. The new CD has the advantage of more of Op. 39, rather quirkily played in 1937 by Lipatti and Boulanger, and Backhaus’s wonderfully spirited account on his own, in 1936, of the whole set of waltzes, offering in all excellent value. Texts are happily included and the silent transfers are what we expect these days from Abbey Road.'