With this superbly executed recital, Maltman leaps in a single bound into the front rank of Lieder interpreters today. Seemingly inspired by the wonderful programme assigned him by Johnson, he executes it with bitingly intense tone and an innate feeling for the German language, his high baritone easily encompassing every test placed on it by the lengthy programme. There are so many deeply satisfying performances here of mostly familiar songs that it is difficult to know which to alight on for special praise, but the last two groups – the sad, frightening tale of the near-deranged Peter and the great Dichterliebe cycle – undoubtedly and rightly form the climax of the recital.
Maltman’s and Johnson’s account of the cycle put me in mind of the underrated version made long ago by Waechter and Brendel (Decca, 6/62 – nla): it has the same immediacy, the same perceptions, with the singer’s voice on each occasion being of the ideal weight and tessitura, and in its absolute prime. All the inner melancholy of words and notes, all their variety of texture are adumbrated. And here we have the added advantage of Johnson’s inspired exegesis of the work in his accompanying notes.
Johnson also points out the foretaste of Mahler in the third of the Peter songs, a piece Maltman sings with just the right touch of vulnerability. He is just as sensitive in such well-known pieces as Die Lotusblume and Dein Angesicht, and brings tremendous impulse of drama to the familiar Die beiden Grenadiere, here sounding new-minted. The songs by Clara are a pleasing bonus, but the difference between talent and genius is apparent in comparing her setting of ‘Es fiel ein Reif’ (from Heine’s Volkslied) with Schumann’s. A perfectly balanced recording adds to one’s pleasure in listening to this generously filled CD, which is up to the high standard of this series to date