The rather odd sequence of events on this historical reissue results from the joining of several different performances from different times and places (although all were under the impresarioship of EMI executive
Walter Legge). The
Monteverdi,
Carissimi, and
Dvorák selections are taken from a recording made directly after a 1955 London recital, while the
Engelbert Humperdinck and
Richard Strauss duets, taken from 78s of several years earlier and showcasing a younger, lighter-voiced
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, are in the nature of an epilogue. The 1955 performances are justifiably famous, for they caught two stars at the height of their powers and musically in sync with one another. It's not quite fair to judge the opening
Monteverdi and
Carissimi performances by today's standards, even though
Schwarzkopf in later life disparaged the efforts of the early music singers she called "Miss
Kirkby and whoever." They're accompanied by piano (by none other than the great
Gerald Moore), and although they're sung in a heavy vibrato that weighs the music down, the precision of
Schwarzkopf and
Irmgard Seefried in their duet work results in lively, alluring performances. The real highlight of the disc is the set of
Dvorák Moravian Duets, Op. 32 -- small masterworks of charm in a language artfully enriched to suggest some of the hidden aspects of the folk texts involved. Throughout, the blend of the two voices is the product of a rare meeting of talents and minds, and the disc is a good place to start if you remember your grandparents getting misty-eyed about either
Schwarzkopf or
Seefried and want to understand why.