When I was preparing my chapter on Dichterliebe for Song on Record I (Cambridge University Press: 1986), the version that most surprised me with its merits was this one: I had not expected Waechter to be such a cogent Lieder interpreter. At roughly the same time, a distinguished colleague, talking to me on the way out from a recital at the Wigmore Hall in London which had included the cycle, asked me whether I had ever heard the Waechter/Brendel version since it was his favourite of all the many readings on disc (in parenthesis one might add that Philip Hope-Wallace much admired the performance in these pages when it first appeared). Ever since, I have been urging its reissue; now that it is at last available again after some 25 years, its qualities seem no less admirable.
As well as any baritone, Waechter conveys the immediacy of the young man's sense of loss: his performance seems to capture the raw, tattered emotions of Heine's jilted lover. In every way it is a direct, deeply felt reading, and it is unerringly matched by Brendel, whose positive, thoughtful playing had not become so intellectualized as it had by the time he accompanied Fischer-Dieskau on Philips (9/86—nla). The partnership is a marvellous one: take ''Und wussten's die Blumen'', where Brendel articulates the semiquavers perfectly and over them Waechter catches the wild despair in the test. Then, in the very next song, both artists find the ideal presentation of its irony, the piano's rhythm vital, the singer's declamation unfettered. After that they change mood to find the tearful feeling of ''Hor ich das Liedchen klingen'' with the baritone's use of vibrato precisely mirroring the tone of the song. Earlier he has risen to the challenge of the high A in ''Ich grolle nicht'' magnificently. Later, in ''Ich hab im Traum geweinet'' the pair have noticed how the voice part at the start is marked piano, the keyboard pp, and that's how they perform it. Throughout, both artists always seem to alight on the right point to emphasize—just listen to how Waechter strikes the word ''Ach'' in ''Aus alten Marchen winkt es'' as the ''land of bliss'' is rudely dismissed. In Brendel's case the weighting of the ineffably beautiful postlude to ''Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen'' is more successful than in any other version I know.
When you hear such a convincing interpretation, it momentarily seems the only and right one, and in any case it's my favourite now among baritone versions. But a tenor singing in the original keys must remain a more general recommendation, especially when there are versions of the calibre of Schreier (Philips and Teldec—see above) and Blochwitz/Jansen (EMI); one the product of a lifetime's study of the work, the other so youthful, plangent and vulnerable as to come very close to a different ideal than Schreier and Waechter present. Any lover of the piece may want all three.
An influential point may be what else is on offer. Unfortunately Decca give us only four other Schumann songs, all admittedly as discerningly performed by both artists (''Schone Wiege'' shows just how sappy and pleasing was Waechter's voice at the time), adding up to a total playing time of 41 minutes, short measure even at mid price. It's a thousand pities that they couldn't add Waechter's DG recording of An die ferne Geliebte, very rare in its LP form (ten-inch). Even so, with a recording that is perfectly balanced and readings of all the songs that are so generous and intelligent, this is a CD I would hate to be without. Quality sometimes counts for as much as playing time!'