Any new recordings from Seefried are welcome, and these performances, deriving from two recitals in 1962, are full of rewarding insight. By the early 1960s the voice, at least at the top of the register, wasn't quite as easy as it once was, but there are ample compensations in the often increased intensity of the readings. That's immediately apparent in the Brahms group, notably in the aching sadness of two folksong settings, Die Trauernde and In stiller Nacht, and - one of Brahms's greatest Lieder - Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen, a searing evocation of lost love. In this last, the emphasis on 'jeden Abend, denn jede Kraft', and 'Verlor ich' is peculiarly moving.
The following day, the soprano, in freer voice, devoted herself entirely to Goethe settings, Schubert's and Wolf's contrasted and complementary versions of Mignon's sad, mysterious utterances from Wilhelm Meister, and to Schubert's Gretchen from Faust. Seefried's plangent tone is ideally suited to all these pieces, and to each she brings an unerring sense of pathos, nowhere more so than in Schubert's setting of Heiss mich nicht reden and Der Konig in Thule, the second given, rightly, with vibrato-less tone. Then she ideally catches Gretchen's hypnotic obsession in the early masterpiece Gretchen am Spinnrade, and convincingly differentiates the various characters in the mini-drama, Szene aus Goethes Faust.
She is no less attuned to the more psychological, intense Mignon settings of Wolf, culminating in the impassioned longing of Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt and Kennst du das Land, the latter grandly operatic as it should be. Throughout, we hear an instinctive interpreter at the peak of her understanding, ably seconded by Werba, her regular partner. The 1965 interview is a welcome bonus, though it is a pity BBC Legends seems to be impervious to the many requests to provide texts and translations. The mono recordings are faultless.'