Artistic Quality: 8 Sound Quality: 4 Simon Gibson’s remastering of this famous 1953 Salzburg Festival Wolf recital is less strident on top than the excellent-quality Fonit Cetra LPs released in the early 1980s, albeit with less bloom to the vocal and piano overtones. Nothing can really tame the fuzzy distortion at the loudest moments, but I’m glad EMI removed the applause between each song, saving it instead for the very end. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf finds her form by the third song, Lebe Wohl, and discovers sensual shadings and opportunities to float in the Italian and Spanish verses. Compare the four Spanisches Liederbuch selections to Schwarzkopf’s studio counterparts 12 years later for DG, and hear how much simpler, less exaggerated a singer she was in 1953. The late John Ardoin aptly described Furtwängler’s piano sonority as “oaken”, which certainly applies to accompaniments that are chordal and declamatory. The conductor’s piano technique, however, lacks the suppleness of touch articulation needed to propel lighter songs like Mein Liebster hat zu Tische, and his dynamic range is fairly limited. Still, this is a far more convincing document of Furtwängler’s keyboard prowess than his horrendously obese Bach Fifth Brandenburg Concerto. Full texts and translations are included, along with Walter Legge’s notes accompanying the recital’s original (and abridged) 1969 LP release. by Jed Distler@classicstoday.com