It's not that the songs are fantastic, although Schubert and Schumann's songs are fantastic. It's not that
Elly Ameling was young and full of spunk, although the young
Elly Ameling was quite full of spunk. It's not that
Jörg Demus is not a congenial accompanist, although he is as comfortable as a sofa and a tumbler of port. No, the reason that this disc is so terrific is that it disproves every rotten thing anyone's ever said about performances of Romantic music on period instruments because this is simply one of the most enchanting discs of echt Romantische Lieder ever recorded.
Ameling's voice is so fresh and sweet, her tone so light and her technique so supple that she seems less a singer of the songs than the songs themselves given voice. And
Demus' playing is so delicate but so strong, so lightly drawn, and so richly colored that one does not miss the sound of a concert grand, but rather revels in the sonorities of a hammerflugel. Only clarinetist Hans Deinzer in Schubert's Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (D. 965) takes some getting used to, and that's mostly because his tone is so wonderfully ripe and his playing is so marvelously dexterous. If all recordings of Romantic music played on period instruments sounded like this, all recordings of Romantic music would be played on period instruments. This is an exquisitely beautiful recording.