This disc comprises six of Lehmann's Odeons, six Victors (1939; all Wolf) and 14 Columbias (1941), divided between Richard Strauss and Brahms. Once again one exclaims, and is heartened by, the warmth of tone and generosity of spirit in all these interpretations; also the total exclusion of the reticence and insistence on good vocal manners that so often weaken the interpretations of her successors, Fassbaender apart. In Erlkonig Lehmann hardly keeps the same tempo from bar to bar and is occasionally choppy in phrasing, but few other versions convey so arrestingly the immediacy and urgency of that forlorn ride through the night and its tragic outcome. She lives the song as though she had just discovered it. Nor have the eagerness of the adoring lover in Schumann's Auftrage, or the ache at the start of Wolf's In der Fruhe (from the Morike settings) ever quite been equalled (though Schwarzkopf came close); again, the singer lives the words as though the events were happening here and now.
There are other lessons to be learnt from her singing. Though by 1941 the tone was no longer that of a young girl, there are ample compensations in characterization and the richness in the lower register of the voice. Her earlier 1929 account of Strauss's Standchen (EMI, 4/93) may be more easily accomplished but this one is the more fervent. And has Brahms's Die Mainacht ever sounded so full of longing? In Strauss's Morgen another lesson is to be learnt: if you take the song at a reasonable speed, rather than dragging it out as is current practice, it means so much more. Lehmann was a bold, outgoing artist who took risks and was rewarded. Listen to her.
Ulanowsky, who plays on the American tracks, was a fit partner for this singer. The transfers are admirably unvarnished, giving us the essence of the originals, themselves catching the voice truthfully.'