This thoughtfully constructed programme opens with some of the best of Wolf's Goethe-Lieder, has the Michelangelo settings satisfyingly interpolated, and goes on to present in sequence three versions of the blind harpist's songs in Wilhelm Meister: Schubert's, Schumann's and Wolf's own. That of itself recommends the disc for serious consideration. The fine performances confirm it, and most especially the likelihood that for a majority of readers the recital will provide their introduction to Daniel Lichti whose name, on the present showing, may have to be added to those of the distinguished baritones (Bar, Schmidt, Allen, Holzmair in the lead) who are already established in a comparable repertoire.
Lichti is from Stratford, Ontario, and among his teachers is Louis Quilico. I can't help wondering whether any of the legacy he has inherited from the past has come in a direct or indirect way from Herbert Janssen, for there were many occasions when something in the style and timbre here brought that great singer to mind (the start of ''Wohl denk ich oft'' in the Michelangelo Lieder for example, or the phrase ''auf dem Jammertal'' in the third song). Comparing him with Andreas Schmidt in the Michelangelo songs (DG), one finds a voice of softer grain and, though I have always considered Schmidt as being remarkably non-imitative considering that Fischer-Dieskau was his teacher, the first sound of Schmidt's voice (something in the colouring of vowels, as in ''mein vergangnes Leben'') here called the master at once to mind, whereas that is an influence which shows up very little in Lichti's singing. The voice also has plenty of power in crescendo with a well-rounded tone only very slightly compromised in its purity at a forte. But the other contrast with Schmidt's record is concerned with expression. Schmidt is much the more outgoing, less introspective and less troubled. It was interesting to look up Lichti's only entry in the current catalogue, a Bach record (another Dorian disc, 1/90), and to find in MR's review the opinion that whereas his voice is ideal for Wachet auf it ''lacks the character and emotional range needed to sustain interest in the solo cantata'' (Ich will dem Kreuzstab gerne tragen). I don't have that record but can imagine that listeners might find some such limitation of character and range in the Lieder. That, to my mind, would be mistaken: Lichti does not command the bitterness and perhaps the energy of declamation which Fischer-Dieskau brings to these songs, but he does have something of his own apart from the beautiful voice, a sense of the spiritual desolation in which man's life is seen as ''haze in a breath of wind''.
About Arlene Shrut's playing of the piano parts it is not easy to determine whether the occasional blurring is due to the hall's acoustics or to some overpedalling. Certainly there is an intensity of feeling and a willingness to take risks (as in Prometheus) rather than be pusillanimous. For these fully engaged performances, and for the chance to compare settings: many thanks.'