The glorious Hansel on the classic Karajan recording for EMI of Humperdinck’s opera, a famed Donna Anna, Agathe, Elisabeth, Elsa and Eva, all of which she recorded to universal praise, Grummer was none the less disgracefully under-recorded, in particular in relation to her recital repertory. She gave an unforgettable recital at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall at about the time the performances on disc were given in German radio studios, calling to mind that notable occasion in – if I remember rightly – some of the same repertory.
The central interpretation here, the Schumann cycle, discloses all this sincere, warm soprano’s many virtues, above all her ability to sing the music in exemplary style with unaffected, straightforward feeling, entirely free from gloss and mannerisms and, where appropriate, a charming glint in her voice. In that sense she is a throwback to some of her great pre-war predecessors such as Lehmann and Lemnitz, but she is a better technician than either of those revered artists. She is the deferential, happy, wondering girl of the first songs to the life, then the eager bride and grateful mother, finally the desolate widow. Word and note are in perfect alliance; everything is clear, filled with meaning yet nothing is exaggerated or portentous, and the tone itself is amazingly fresh for a singer in her mid-fifties.
Mendelssohn’s Auf Flugeln des Gesanges and Neue Liebe are sung with the same fresh spontaneity. So are some interesting settings of Eichendorff and Morike by Schoeck. The four masterpieces from Wolf’s Spanish Songbook are still better: Bedeckt mich mit Blumen has just the right erotic languour, In dem Schatten meiner Locken just the right sense of fun without any of the archness that can ruin its irresistibly loving message. Reimann, here and throughout, is a finely imaginative partner and the recording could not be bettered. This is a CD for all connoisseurs of Lieder singing at its very best.'