This is an outright winner, easily the most enjoyable offering so far from a singer in EMI’s Debut series and one of the most satisfying CDs of Lieder tout court to appear in recent months. Karneus’s absolutely natural voice has an ideal warmth of tone and its owner exhibits throughout the kind of connection with the text of a Baker or a von Otter. I don’t suggest that encomium lightly: in years to come I imagine this disc will achieve the collectors’ status achieved by Baker’s early LPs on Saga and von Otter’s Swedish-made discs.
Karneus begins with a group that not only announces an important interpreter of Strauss Lieder, but also makes one long to hear her as Octavian, a role tailor-made for her outgoing approach to the love-songs. She is just as impressive when even deeper feelings are invoked by the composer, as in ‘Ruhe, meine Seele’ and ‘Morgen’, and both these pieces are all the better for being given without the slow tempos and excess of sentiment commonly imposed on them today. The sincere simplicity evinced here is so much more relevant and moving, especially when the phrasing and the German is, as everywhere on the issue, so exemplary, the movement between notes, using gentle portamento, so admirable.
In the Mahler, there’s ebullience and good humour, even a smile in the voice, in ‘Ich ging mit Lust’ and ‘Hans und Grethe’, a rich vein of heartfelt, inner feeling so appropriate to ‘Liebst du um Schonheit’ and ‘Ich bin der Welt’. Though in the latter song one misses the orchestral clothing usually encountered, Vignoles consoles us for its absence with his subtle, soft-grained, finely judged playing, another strong feature of the CD. The singer tells us in a note that it is he who introduced her to the Lieder of Marx, ‘truly romantic songs’ and ‘a really great sing’, as she avers. Again the rich, even tone and response to the texts add an extra dimension to one’s pleasure, particularly in the touching Venetian Lullaby which closes a profoundly satisfying programme. The recording is well balanced. The only drawback is that to get texts and translations you are directed to EMI’s web site, but don’t let that arbitrary injunction stop anyone acquiring this recital, a real ‘must buy’ for Lieder lovers.'