This live recording from the 1956 Salzburg Festival captures Schwarzkopf’s art at its peak. It has always seemed an irony to me that a singer so well placed to benefit (as Mrs Walter Legge) from a position of influence in the record industry should have left a legacy of recordings that are rather less inspiring than the memories I have of her in person. While Legge was still alive, bootleg recordings of Schwarzkopf were few and far between, but now EMI are gradually searching out live recordings to add to their substantial Schwarzkopf discography and the spontaneity of these comes as a real delight.
Although this Salzburg recital is new to disc, its programme is made up of typical Schwarzkopf favourites, so there is little here that the assiduous collector will not have in some performance by the singer elsewhere. In particular, EMI’s earlier two-disc live recital from New York later that year (EMI, 2/89) covers a lot of the same ground. But with Gerald Moore at his eloquent best, and with a better original recording quality, this is the one to have. Schwarzkopf herself also sounds in easier voice, shaping the opening lines of Wolf’s Kennst du das Land? more fluently and generally responding to Moore’s lighter touch. Inevitably, there are songs which some listeners will find over-interpreted (Wolf’s Philine and Die Zigeunerin are both helped along with a nudge and a wink too many) but there is much to enjoy. The mixed opening group is full of variety. Schubert’s An Silvia is delightfully playful, Schumann’s Der Nussbaum almost unbearably tender. Enough: recommended.'