Recordings of the Op. 39 Liederkreis seem to proliferate by the month. What makes any definitive comparison or choice hard is that they are in each case coupled with different works by Schumann, or—as in the case of the Fassbaender performance I reviewed in the October issue—with a work by another composer. Price's marrying of Op. 39 with Op. 35 makes good sense as Fischer-Dieskau shows in his live 1959 recording from Salzburg on Orfeo. In his unsurpassed album (three discs) for Teldec, Schreier sings Op. 39 and a selection from Op. 35.
The second song of Op. 35, one of the set's best, ''Stirb, Lieb und Freud!'' can serve as a kind of template of this pair's deeply considered achievement, the singer in mostly grateful voice, the pianist responsive to her musical needs, the two combining in a thought-through reading. The poignancy of ''Erstes Grun'', the outgoing brio of the two wandering songs are just as enjoyable. Some doubt crept in with ''Stille Liebe'', taken too gingerly. Schreier takes more than a minute less over the song and it is all the better for it. Here, in ''Stille Tranen'' and the last two, interconnected songs, I felt both artists were standing a little too much in awe of the music, thus missing its spontaneity so unerringly achieved by both Schreier and Fischer-Dieskau.
Price and Johnson encompass almost all the drama, mystery and sense of fantasy in Op. 39. Their Liederkreis is certainly as good as any at present available with a soprano protagonist, and Price's kind of vocal gold allied to near-perfect technique is most telling here, not least in the ineffably beautiful ''Mondnacht''. Johnson doesn't take such an upfront view of the piano's role as Eschenbach for Schreier (or indeed Leonskaja for Fassbaender); he follows the less interventionist, equally valid view of Moore, emphasized by a backward placing of the piano.
Although I have enjoyed these performances I would not choose them above those of Fischer-Dieskau and Moore who, in the context of a live occasion, give more forthright, searching interpretations, while Schreier's three-disc set is still indispensable for the lover of Schumann songs.'