Somewhere in the world's book of fairy stories there must be one about the girl who is ushered into the King's Court where the ladies survey her critically, one remarking that a curl is out of place, another that a buckle has gone missing and so forth, till a child, silent up till then, cries ''Oh, but she's beautiful'', and in the face of this overwhelming truth the stout parties collapse. The overwhelming truth about this record is that the voice is—or surely was at the time—the most beautiful in the world. I read my review in Gramophone of the original issue and am pleased to see this fact recognized (''quite the loveliest soprano voice before the public today'') about half way through. But first had to come the displaced curl and the missing buckle.
Actually, the analogy is not quite exact, for the complaint was a more fundamental one, namely that somehow or other the singer's personal fund of zest and energy is not drawn upon in her singing. She is not inexpressive (hear how the voice-colour changes from Blumengruss to L'invitation au voyage, which follows in the programme, or how the expression lights up in Die Soldatenbraut), but there always seems to come a point where she can't or won't generate the tension, or arrive full-heartedly at the strong centre of the emotion. Sometimes, as in Au pays ou se fait la guerre, a saddened tenderness leaves nothing to be desired—until near the end when the cry of ''toute ma joie'' wants just that extra release of emotional fullness. But the loveliness of voice and line, throughout this recital, is almost flawless: she is, as the child within our critical selves cries with overwhelming truth, beautiful.'