The Overture is played with a sombre foreboding, the Peasants' March has a good raw sound, and the Wolfs Glen is vividly characterized. Among the...

The Overture is played with a sombre foreboding, the Peasants' March has a good raw sound, and the Wolfs Glen is vividly characterized. Among the singers, the most distinguished performance comes from Sharon Sweet. She has a most expressive sense of phrasing, always feeling the words and varying her rich, warm tone to convey them. Her two main numbers, ''Leise, leise'' and ''Und ob die Wolke'', are beautifully contemplative; and she joins sensitively in the Trio and the other ensembles. Ruth Ziesak's Aennchen sounds indeed a relation, with a family kinship in manner: she is less soubrettish than most singers of the role, but lively enough, and she makes an amusing success of the silly song about the dog. There is a magnificent Kaspar from Kurt Rydl, who glitters darkly in the Drinking Song, delivers ''Schweig! Schweig!'' with appalling menace, and speaks his lines in the Wolfs Glen more powerfully than any other performer of the role. Peter Seiffert brings to Max a good reputation as a Heldentenor in Wagner and Strauss; but there is an edge to his voice, and he can sound strained and even tremulous, as if he is trying too hard with melodic lines that for much of the time owe more to French example.

– Gramophone