A musical soiree in the 1830s with songs and duets by Mendelssohn would have been a homely affair. There is little in this music to disturb the sense of familiar contentment or suggest any undercurrent of darker feelings below the surface. Almost every song is simple and tuneful, as much a salon piece as an art-song. It was a good idea on Hyperion’s part to vary what might have been a bland programme with duets as well as solo songs, two voices instead of one.
Accompanied with delightful vitality by Eugene Asti, these two young singers have no need to force the music beyond its natural limits. Sophie Daneman sings the soprano’s songs lightly, sensitively, just a touch sweetly, but the strain that is evident in a couple of the more taxing numbers, such as the Op. 47 “Fruhlingslied”, suggests that she might be taxed by more ambitious material. Nathan Berg, by contrast, is at his best when he is required to raise his game. “Auf der Wanderschaft”, one of Mendelssohn’s strongest settings, shows a resonant, lyrical, classy baritone, with fine musical instinct, who shows real promise for the future. Comparisons with Lieder ‘greats’, such as Fischer-Dieskau, show this young pair gaining as much in freshness as they may lose in mature artistry. In the duets Marilyn Horne and Frederica von Stade flaunt bigger personalities, but of a kind that would not fit nearly so comfortably around the piano in the living-room.'