After all these years Husch's performances of these three cycles remain a benchmark by which others come to be judged. Of course, in his later period, Fischer-Dieskau to an extent moved the goalposts, providing interpretations that gave a new, more interventionist cast to all three as he lived love and love's pain with an added immediacy, a more positive emphasis on the words. Now that Fischer-Dieskau himself is moving into the perspective of history, the particular verities to which Husch attached himself seem to have been restored to favour with a certain patrician reticence having its own validity.
What cannot be in doubt is that Husch owned one of the most sheerly beautiful baritone voices in the history of the gramophone; rounded, warm, easy in tone, perfectly focused without a trace of strain or wobble from top to bottom. He used it to create an ideal, seamless line on which the words were placed naturally and effortlessly. When he made these cycles he was only in his thirties, but had already established himself in opera and was resident at both the main houses in Berlin as early as 1930, the year he began his Lieder recitals. He established a reputation in that field almost at once, and was one of the first to move beyond a narrow range of songs.
In Die schone Mullerin he deftly combines dramatic projection with inward musing. The false dawn of love, the unthinking adoration are contrasted with the pathos of the ensuing loss. His use of rubato throughout, within sensible, unexaggerated tempos, is exemplary. In Song on Record 1 (Cambridge University Press: 1986), HF thought the ''affective quality'' of his Winterreise came ''from the very poise of his aristocratic baritone which takes the perfect weight of each word and line, pushing out its meaning through consonants and vowels exquisitely placed in legato arches''. Just so. In approaching it thus, Husch gradually builds to the overwhelming tragedy of the last four songs. In both works he is gratifyingly seconded by Hanns Udo Muller, whose clearly sculpted playing seems entirely in harmony with the baritone's singing. Sad that he was killed by a bomb during the war.
They are no less successful in the Beethoven cycle, recorded in 1936. Here again you have an entirely natural, classic reading that sets all sorts of standards in both singing and interpretation. Again, the distinction comes from the velvet quality of the voice, the consistent line and precise diction. All three recordings stand the test of time, even if one would sometimes like the piano tone to be a little more forward. Sadly Preiser once more omit texts and translations. Nevertheless, don't let that stop you hearing and enjoying interpretations that remain competitive with the best on offer today.'