"We all envied her, because all that we had to struggle so hard to achieve seemed so natural and self-evident to her because she knew how to sing from the heart" said Elisabeth Schwarzkopf of her colleague Irmgard Seefried. Collected here are Seefried's complete recital recordings for Deutsche Grammophon as well as highlights from her recordings of opera and sacred music for the label and includes material both unpublished and new to CD.
Irmgard Seefried was a revered artist among lovers of natural singing, wrote the critic Alan Blyth. 'The emotions, grave or gay, are expressed directly, unfussily, genuinely, in that peculiarly outgoing manner that was this artist's supreme gift.' This gift illuminates song repertoire from Bach to Bartók and beyond in a newly compiled and remastered set of her recital albums recorded by Deutsche Grammophon in the 1950s and 60s. 'If I were condemned to hear only one voice for the remainder of my life I think it might well be hers,' wrote Blyth on another occasion (a reissue of the 1953 'Liederabend' anthology of concert performances). 'If I wanted to be charmed, to laugh or to cry I would find her the perfect companion.'
The core of the set is formed by several albums of Romantic Lieder by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Wolf. As well as an imaginative collection of Goethe settings, there is an album of Heine and Schumann, poetry and song, in which the recited portions are reissued on CD for the first time. The set includes two appendices, both also new to CD: Seefried's contribution to the DG audio documentary series 'Erzähltes Leben', and 'Erik Werba Accompanies You', in which the soprano's regular recital partner plays the piano part for famous Lieder (with the idea that the listener at home will take the sung line for themselves).
Seefried also made several opera recordings as well as sacred music for Deutsche Grammophon. Generous excerpts from these - often including entire scenes, not just arias - are included as newly-compiled anthologies across five CDs.
Seefried's voice was renowned for it's beauty and tonally purity, with minimal vibrato. Her diction was exquisite, as were her phrasing and legato in Schumann's cycle of Mary, Queen of Scots Lieder. Especially in folksong repertoire such as the Liebeslieder-Walzer of Brahms, she contrived to give the impression that her art came easily to her, and that it's expression was an inevitable extension of her personality, devoid of any suggestion of imposing her will upon the music. But this impression was the essence of Seefried's greatness, and it transferred to modern song repertoire, too: not only the opulent romanticism of Respighi's Il tramonto but Werner Egk's German-Mediterranean Quattro canzoni, and a selection of sacred solo motets by Paul Hindemith that surprised and delighted many critics on it's first issue.
All the material in this Original Covers collection has been newly remastered, and the set is richly illustrated and accompanied by a new essay on Seefried's art by Tully Potter as well as an English translation of Ein Selbstporträt by Fer van Campen.
