Elisabeth Schwarzkopf - Elisabeth Schwarzkopf 1915-2006 (5 CD Box Set) (2006)

What was it that made Elisabeth Schwarzkopf such a fabulous singer? The answer is supplied by this five-disc set EMI released after her death in 2006. With a disc of songs by Schubert, Schumann, and Strauss; a disc of arias by Mozart, Puccini, and Strauss; a disc of encores by Debussy, Hahn, and Tchaikovsky as well as Wagner, Brahms, and Mahler; a disc of bigger works including Bach's Cantata Mein Herze Schwimmt im Blut and Strauss' Vier letze Lieder; and, the prize of the set, a full disc given to 24 songs by Hugo Wolf, this set generously covers the roles and repertoire for which Schwarzkopf was best known.

So what was it that made Schwarzkopf such a fabulous singer? It's her technique -- effortless and utterly elegant -- her intonation -- pure and right on the sweet spot -- and her tone -- clear, bright, and filled with light. And it's her interpretations -- fully considered from the least inhalation of breath to the deepest meaning of the fusion of words and music yet always fresh, warm, and uniquely her own. Like a great actor of the old school, Schwarzkopf inhabited the part, got inside the aching pain of Wolf's Mignon, inside the searing fury of Schubert's Gretchen, inside the bittersweet love of Strauss' Feldmarschallin, but at the same time, she always stood slightly back from the part, expressing pain, fury, and love through her artistry and thereby transforming them from individual emotion to universal art.

Mention should be made of Schwarzkopf's superlative accompanists from redoubtable pianists Gerald Moore and Geoffrey Parsons to formidable conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan. And mention should likewise be made of the magnificent production of Walter Legge, who contrived to put his wife's voice center stage with a separate spotlight microphone without in any way distorting or diminishing the balance of the whole. But in the end, it's Schwarzkopf's artistry that will make this set mandatory listening for fans of great singers of the twentieth century.