LIVE! - FREDERICA VON STADE SO

The voice of this lovely singer is now in its freshest full bloom. These years, the early middle period, of a singer's career ought to be cherished and relished like the fine days of our fickle summer. Yet we have an ungrateful way of passing them over with a forward look towards the things of autumn, the mellow fruitfulness of the mature interpreter, the ripeness of art that knows all shades of expression from the most playful to the most profound. Listening to this record, I find the critical habit urging me on to commit this kind of folly. In the very first song, Dowland's Come again, one is already preparing to go and look for Janet Baker's record (HMV HQS1091, 7/67); in Liszt's Die drei Zigeuner the ineffaceable memory of Schwarzkopf interposes. And it is true: there are limitations to the success of this delightful record. By comparison with Schwarzkopf there is something passive and underlit about the story-telling in that song; just as Baker's exceptionally strong projection an