''The miracle of Suleika I is that it manages to be both epic and intensely personal—we are drawn to the heart of the girl's longing in a way inconceivable in an aria. On the other hand, Suleika II was, almost certainly, deliberately shaped as a virtuoso display for both voice and piano.'' Thus writes Graham Johnson in another of his deeply perceptive notes. These two great settings of Goethe coupled with Auf dem See, to words by the same poet, form the appropriate climax to this disc devoted to Schubert's settings inspired by nature and the elements—flowers, followed by stars, then breezes and winds, the last-named carrying Suleika's erotic messages. In these three songs, Lott's large-scale, operatic manner and soaring tone come into their own in fulfilling Johnson's ideas about each piece.
Elsewhere I must report limited enthusiasm for her singing. She seems to have difficulty nowadays fining her voice down to the needs of the Lied and too often her tone sounds curiously uncomfortable even at times edgy. It isn't only that; except in the Goethe settings mentioned, the songs do not seem to have been sufficiently absorbed into the singer's being and the penchant for slow speeds emphasizes a sense of anonymity about the readings.
Alarmed at my reaction to a much-loved artist I decided to make some close comparisons with other versions of the songs where they exist. Nachtviolen at the beginning of the recital sounds curiously studied taken so deliberately and reverentially; not so if you listen to Ameling with Baldwin on the recent four-CD reissue (Philips, to be reviewed) of her Schubert, or going further back Elisabeth Schumann in her enchanting 78rpm version reissued in the ''Schubert Lieder on Record'' on LP (9/82—nla), a set that demands reissue.
Johnson writes of Beim Winde, a Mayrhofer setting, that the final section is ''a fervent hymn of such solemn tenderness and simplicity that Schubert regards 'Die Deinen' as something of broader significance than his next of kin''. To sense Johnson's meaning and also the wonder of the song's opening, repeated at the close as a refrain, I needed to turn to Fischer-Dieskau. He and Moore take the song a deal faster, which helps convey its expressionistic mood. Much the same is true in a comparison between the two singers in Am See, a neglected masterpiece. With Lott it stays obstinately earthbound but comes to marvellous life in Fischer-Dieskau's interpretation. In another Mayrhofer setting, Die Sternennachte, it is Holzmair, on a recent Tudor recital, who provides a deeper, more varied interpretation than Lott manages.
Without odious comparisons to bother with, I enjoyed the lengthy Vergissmeinnicht (''Forget-me-not''): Lott and Johnson, on probing form here, hold together its varied strands. In the final stanzas, where the composer ''weaves musical spells redolent of healing and self-acceptance'' (Johnson), the pair go to the heart of the matter; the music taking wing.
The recording, happily immediate by comparison with some others in this series, is a shade marred by a curious movement of the voice, on occasion, from left to right: maybe that mirrors the singer moving her head from one side to the other.'