If it did not involve the unbecoming process known as biting off the nose to spite the face, I would recommend the boycotting of this product, desirable though the record is in itself. The packaging is rather lavish, with a little transparent jacket to slip over what looks like a pocket booklet; inside are six full-page photographs, including one of the singer with her pet spaniel at the grand piano, coyly captioned “Steber teaches a friend some vocal tricks”; an essay on her career and some quotations from an interview are given in English, German and French (readers, therefore, are not assumed to be proficient linguists); another four pages are devoted to information about the Masterworks series (also in three languages). No room, however, can be found for texts let alone translations of texts (listeners, therefore, are assumed to be of the type who will cry “Ah!” over the spaniel, “Oh!” over the interview and be content to let the sound wash around above their heads). Need it be said that texts are essential, not a kind of optional bonus, for the appreciation of the songs by Berlioz?
Steber’s recording of Les nuits d’ete is nevertheless famous, and justly so. A refreshing coolness pervades the first song and to some extent the second so that compared with Regine Crespin’s powerful and subtle performance Steber’s may at first seem light in feeling as in tone. Experience, I think, will confirm that this is indeed only a matter of ‘seems’: for instance, an almost shocking change of colour and expression come over the voice with the line “Ma belle amie est morte” at the opening of the third song. The supreme merit, however, has to do with ‘pure’ singing, for here is absolutely firm, even production, a scrupulously clean ‘take’ of individual notes and a properly schooled ‘binding’ of notes within the phrase. This is true also of the sacred solos, the Bach being particularly enjoyable (“My heart ever faithful”, from Cantata No. 68, for its energy, “Sighing, weeping”, from Cantata No. 21, for the loveliness of its tone). The voice is here three years fresher than that of the 40-year-old singer in the Berlioz, where the transfer reveals a certain amount of corruption by a kind of tinkle of worn metal on the voice’s surface: very lovely for the most part even so.'