For reasons best known to themselves, DG chose only to make a lucky dip into Barenboim's 1974 recording of the complete Songs without words to reissue in a mixed recital on CD (CD 415 118-2GH, 7/85). so for the moment, Livia Rev has the field to herself: she in fact gives us not just the familiar 48 (could it merely have been coincidence that the Bach-loving Mendelssohn stopped at that number?) but also an extra G minor piece (its manuscript to be found in a Cracow museum) apparently overlooked by such official sources as Novello and Grove.
As we all know, this artist is not just a prestidigitator but an exceptionally discerning musician. And again here, she plays with an unaffected sincerity and warmth of affection that make these pieces so much more than pretty aquarelles. In fact her Innigkeit often made me think that Schumann, rather than Mendelssohn, was the composer. So why did I find it such a strain to listen to these two discs straight off?
Partly, I think, because of what Goethe was on about when he said that nothing in this life was harder to bear than an unbroken succession of lovely days. I found it just a bit too comfortably assuaging. In particular, faster numbers are never quite animated or disturbed, enough to bring the contrasts so badly needed in this already emotionally restricted set as a whole. To confirm my suspicions I got out Barenboim's old LP album, and met there a lither, more impressionable Mendelssohn in the spring rather than late summer of his life. Nor is Barenboim's sharper characterization achieved just by tempo. He also uses a wider tonal palette, and perhaps still more important, finds more interest in inner and under parts while at the same time never forgetting the implications of the title. The melody always sings.
We're not told where the Rev recording was made. But the sound is close enough to bring the piano right into your own room. There's a touch of tubbiness, sometimes even bottom-heaviness, in its quality, though it's as warm as the playing itself.'