This EMI "Great Recordings of the Century" reissue contains a classic performance of Schubert's song cycle Schwanengesang D.957, and a further group of four songs, "Erlkönig" (D.328), "Ständchen" (D.957), "Nacht und Träume" (D.827), and "Du bist die Ruh" (D.776), performed by baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Gerald Moore at the piano. Fischer-Dieskau "had only to sing one phrase before I knew I was in the presence of a master", wrote accompanist Gerald Moore (in his autobiography, Am I too loud?), referring to the first of his many recording sessions with Fischer-Dieskau in October 1951, a session that produced a number of the tracks on this recording. Their earliest documentation of Schubert's Schwanengesang (the first of Fischer-Dieskau's five) was assembled piecemeal from songs taped during four widely-spaced sessions held between 1951 and 1958. The recording itself may be said to have been a compilation, but then as John Steane points out in his booklet note, so is the cycle itself, drawing as it does on texts by six different authors.

It's also interesting to note that the performance was recorded at two different locations and was supervised variously by three producers; yet the overall result is thoroughly consistent, both sonically and musically. Through the years, Fischer-Dieskau's view of the cycle also seemed to alter very little, and so you'll find few points of divergence between this account and his 1971 Deutsche Grammophon remake, also with Moore. The DG transfer largely eliminates tape hiss, which still persists on this EMI remastering, though it's unlikely to affect listening pleasure. Both performances are largely without parallel, and indeed any rehearing of this EMI traversal should explain Moore's conviction that Fischer-Dieskau's artistry "takes me deeper into the heart of Schubert than I have ever been before."

--Michael Jameson