Where Mendelssohn's songs were for so long neglected, they are now in danger of suffering from more exposure than is perhaps good for them. I can only second what LS wrote about Vol. 1 of this projected integrale in the June issue, when he referred to the predominantly bland nature of Mendelssohn's settings: ''agreeably homely songs based on lesser versifiers and folk sources''. One of those 'lesser versifiers' was undoubtedly Klingemann who is heavily represented here. He didn't rouse the composer from his easy ability to write uncomplicated melodies and innocuous accompaniments. They hardly show him at his most compelling as a composer of Lieder, but that isn't the end of the story: when confronted by a more substantial poet such as Eichendorff, Mendelssohn showed his mettle. Apart from the familiar and engaging Pagenlied, taken somewhat deliberately by Protschka and his partner, I enjoyed the nocturnal Innigkeit of Nachtlied, the mysterious doings in Das Waldschloss and Es weiss und rat es doch keiner, where the composer discovers quite a different and equally valid solution to the poem's ecstatic musings than that given by Schumann in his Liederkreis. All these find a ready response from Protschka, always lively with his words and bright-eyed in tone.
Of the other settings, I enjoyed the lyrical outpouring of Der Blumenstrauss and the eager flow of Fruhlingslied, two of the more attractive of the Klingemann settings, and the 6/8 imitation of a boat's gentle course in Das Schifflein, an Uhland poem. Singer and pianist make the most of these, and of even the most predictable of the songs, with only an occasional hardening of tone at the top of Protschka's range to cause any problem. The recording is well balanced and clearly focused. Once again this company has nodded in its proof-reading: the last verses of Entsagung and Fruhlingslied have been omitted in both German and in LS's translation.'