Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs /12 Orchestral Songs

Strauss Buy New: $11.98

This recording of Strauss’s Four Last Songs is superb – for the most part. This is a gem of a disc. The Four Last Songs are among the most beautiful things Strauss ever wrote, and Elizabeth Schwarzkopf gives a heartfelt and poignant rendition of these apopemtic lieder.
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was one of those singers whom one either loves or hates. She was a “stylist,” who inflected every phrase, every note in her urge to communicate what she considered to be the meaning of the text. Others feel that the only thing she communicated was her own need to impress people with her ability to communicate, and I believe she often forgot the difference between art and artfulness. Be that as it may, she was an outstanding Strauss singer, and her performance of the Four Last Songs, in particular, is legendary.