''The word Inbrunst—fervour—seems to me to describe an aspect of Liszt's music matched by none other. To immerse oneself in the richness of his musical invention, to give oneself to his fervour—this should be the aim of any singer approaching Liszt.'' So Fassbaender writes in her own predictably perceptive notes to this issue. And she fulfils her own injunction to the full. She also speaks of Liszt's songs demanding ''an almost operatic mode of expression as the vocal line strives to match an accompaniment which is, for long stretches, of virtuosic power''. Again, the broad brush of her accounts of the more expansive songs, such as Mignons Lied (''Kennst du das Land'') and Die drei Zigeuner, both reasonably familiar, added to the familiar acuity of her diction is admirable, matching the disciplined virtuosity of Thibaudet.
The disc is especially welcome for taking us along some of the many-faceted byways of Liszt's song writing and uncovering in the thicket such treasures as the Tristanesque, though somewhat too verbose, Ich mochte hingehn, the strangely abrupt and morbid Und wir dachten der Toten (the final stanza of a Freligrath poem), the dreamy Lasst mich ruhen, the recitative-like Blume und Duft, with a dying fall typical of Liszt, and the epigrammatic Was Liebe sei. Even better are the very Schumannesque Wieder mocht ich dir begegnen and Ihr Auge, a Rellstab setting. When the composer actually pits his abilities directly against those of Schumann, as in Du bist wie eine Blume and Im Rhein, im schonen Strome, his approach to the text, more diffuse, pale against those of his great predecessor.
In setting Der Konig in Thule he challenges comparison with many other composers—and here Fassbaender has to be compared with her younger self on an Electrola LP (nla). Astonishingly the mezzo's voice, with its highly individual timbre and idiosyncratic style, sounds almost exactly as it did in 1981. Somewhat surprisingly, I found the older recording was happier in coping with its broad spectrum of overtones and in catching its special flavour, coming over with greater immediacy. Which is not to say that the Decca isn't well balanced and more than adequate. Every interpretation seems finely adjusted to the song in hand, the singer responding to the arch-romantic with an answering fervour of her own. Thibaudet occasionally goes through his tone, but by and large his playing is as well fitted as the mezzo's singing to the sensuous, often sensual needs of Liszt's writing, nowhere more so than in a song I haven't yet mentioned. Hohe Liebe, that finds both artists at their considerable best. Another 'must' then for the growing band of enthusiasts for this singer's interpretations of Lieder.'