Even after 50 years, the archives continue to uncover ‘new’ recordings by the legendary Kathleen Ferrier. The two performances on APR are mentioned in Paul Campion’s Ferrier: A Career Recorded (Julia MacRae: 1992), but then he held out little hope of their issue. Now they are both made available, not least owing to Campion’s persistent advocacy. The account of Das Lied von der Erde is of the greatest importance because it is only one of two collaborations on disc with Barbirolli, who admired the singer so much, and because it is the only record, in both senses, of Barbirolli’s interpretation. We owe its existence to a private enthusiast who happened to record it from the BBC Third Programme on his then-new Ferrograph machine. Seven bars at the beginning are wanting and there are moments of the kind of interference then endemic to wireless listening.

Such minor defects matter not a whit in view of the immediacy of the reading on all sides and the reasonably good sound all round. Indeed, Ferrier can be heard in a more forward placing than on any of the recordings listed above. This gives her account an even greater emotional tug than elsewhere – that and the fact that, live, Barbirolli seems to draw from her quite as intense an interpretation as Walter, while he matches his noble coeval in his understanding of the score and his ability to convey all his own involvement in it – ‘Glorious John’ indeed. As a matter of record, his timings and his approach are very similar to Walter’s. Only in the closing section of the finale does Barbirolli go slower than Walter; Ferrier uses the extra space to arresting effect.

The youthful Richard Lewis surpasses himself with just the kind of impassioned, lyrical singing the exacting songs for tenor call for. Indeed, as in his later readings, he is improved on only by Patzak on the 1952 Walter performances by virtue of the Austrian tenor’s more idiomatic German – and I don’t forget Wunderlich for Klemperer who sings magnificently but in a slightly detached manner.

In sum, the earliest, New York, performance with Ferrier and Walter (on Naxos) has the singer in younger, easier voice, but at the time she hadn’t perhaps lived with the work long enough. I would hate now to be without this Barbirolli version to set beside the Decca (where the sound is preferable to that on Andante).

Ferrier recorded the Alto Rhapsody for Decca in 1947 with Clemens Krauss; this Norwegian broadcast of two weeks later is to be preferred. The slightly quicker speeds aid Ferrier in giving a more vital account of her part, and the Oslo chorus is much more alert than its London Philharmonic counterparts of the day.The music’s tessitura is ideally suited to Ferrier’s voice.

Comment on the Naxos issue can be briefer. These recordings, originally made for Columbia, have been reissued and admired, especially the song cycle, many times. The account of Kindertotenlieder marked the first Ferrier-Walter cooperation on disc and it remains a taut, even searing, performance. Ferrier is in tremendous voice, and reasonably well recorded, and this reissue has been capably transferred by Mark Obert-Thorn. The Mahler Fourth dates from four years earlier, and is Walter’s first recording of the work. It is well-paced and judicious, as is all his Mahler, but the original sound and the soprano soloist leave something to be desired. For all that, at the asking-price this is an undoubted bargain.