Irmgard Seefried Edition (20CD Boxset)

“We all envied her, because all that we had to struggle so hard to achieve seemed so natural and self-evident to her because she knew how to sing from the heart” said Elisabeth Schwarzkopf of her colleague IRMGARD SEEFRIED.

Collected here are Seefried’s complete recital recordings for Deutsche Grammophon as well as highlights from her recordings of opera and sacred music for the label and includes material both unpublished and new to CD.

Irmgard Seefried was a revered artist among lovers of natural singing, wrote the critic Alan Blyth. ‘The emotions, grave or gay, are expressed directly, unfussily, genuinely, in that peculiarly outgoing manner that was this artist’s supreme gift.’ This gift illuminates song repertoire from Bach to Bartók and beyond in a newly compiled and remastered set of her recital albums recorded by Deutsche Grammophon in the 1950s and 60s.
 
‘If I were condemned to hear only one voice for the remainder of my life I think it might well be hers,’ wrote Blyth on another occasion (a reissue of the 1953 ‘Liederabend’ anthology of concert performances). ‘If I wanted to be charmed, to laugh or to cry I would find her the perfect companion.’
 
The core of the set is formed by several albums of Romantic Lieder by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wolf. As well as an imaginative collection of Goethe settings, there is an album of Heine and Schumann, poetry and song, in which the recited portions are reissued on CD for the first time. The set includes two appendices, both also new to CD: Seefried’s contribution to the DG audio documentary series ‘Erzähltes Leben’, and ‘Erik Werba Accompanies You’, in which the soprano’s regular recital partner plays the piano part for famous Lieder (with the idea that the listener at home will take the sung line for themselves). 
 
Seefried also made several opera recordings as well as sacred music for Deutsche Grammophon. Generous excerpts from these – often including entire scenes, not just arias – are included as newly-compiled anthologies across five CDs.
 
Seefried’s voice was renowned for its beauty and tonally purity, with minimal vibrato. Her diction was exquisite, as were her phrasing and legato in Schumann’s cycle of Mary, Queen of Scots Lieder. Especially in folksong repertoire such as the Liebeslieder-Walzer of Brahms, she contrived to give the impression that her art came easily to her, and that its expression was an inevitable extension of her personality, devoid of any suggestion of imposing her will upon the music. 
 
But this impression was the essence of Seefried’s greatness, and it transferred to modern song repertoire, too: not only the opulent romanticism of Respighi’s Il tramonto but Werner Egk’s German-Mediterranean Quattro canzoni, and a selection of sacred solo motets by Paul Hindemith that surprised and delighted many critics on its first issue. All the material in this Original Covers collection has been newly remastered, and the set is richly illustrated and accompanied by a new essay on Seefried’s art by Tully Potter as well as an English translation of  Ein Selbstporträt by Fer van Campen.

CD 1
MOZART 9 Lieder
SCHUMANN Frauenliebe und Leben
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Erik Werba, piano

CD 2
SCHUBERT Lieder
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Erik Werba, piano

CD 3
SCHUBERT · SCHUMANN · BRAHMS Lieder
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Erik Werba, piano

CD 4
SCHUMANN Lied und Dichtung
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Oskar Werner, speaker · Erik Werba, piano

CD 5
BRAHMS Liebeslieder-Walzer (1962 studio recording* & 1952 ‘live’ recording°)
Neue Liebeslieder-Walzer (1962 studio recording)
*Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Raili Kostia, alto · Waldemar Kmentt, tenor · Eberhard Wächter, baritone · Erik Werba & Günther Weissenborn, piano
°Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Kathleen Ferrier, contralto · Julius Patzak, tenor · Horst Günther, bass-baritone · Clifford Curzon & Hans Gál, piano

CD 6
BRAHMS · RICHARD STRAUSS · CORNELIUS Lieder
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Erik Werba, piano

CD 7
SCHUBERT ∙ BRAHMS · RICHARD STRAUSS · *REGER Lieder
HINDEMITH 3 Geistliche Motetten
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Erik Werba, piano · *Wolfgang Schneiderhan, violin
EGK Quattro canzoni
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks / Werner Egk

CD 8
WOLF Nimmersatte Liebe
Italienisches Liederbuch (excerpts)
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Oskar Werner, speaker · Erik Werba, piano

CD 9
WOLF Spanisches Liederbuch
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Eberhard Wächter, baritone · Erik Werba, piano
First complete release on CD

CD 10
WOLF Italienisches Liederbuch
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Erik Werba, piano
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone · Jörg Demus, piano

CD 11
LIEDER NACH GEDICHTEN VON GOETHE
Mozart · Beethoven · Schubert · Schumann · Wolf
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Erik Werba, piano

CD 12
LIEDERABEND IRMGARD SEEFRIED
Schubert · Brahms · Mussorgsky · Bartók · Wolf · Strauss
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Erik Werba, piano

CD 13
J.S. BACH Wedding Cantata, BWV 202
RESPIGHI Il tramonto
MOZART Divertimento, K. 138*
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Festival Strings Lucerne / Rudolf Baumgartner
MOZART Così fan tutte (arias – sung in German)°
Irmgard Seefried, soprano · Wiener Symphoniker / Ferdinand Leitner
*First Release on CD°Previously unpublished

CD 14
IRMGARD SEEFRIED SINGS HANDEL & MOZART
Arias and scenes from Giulio Cesare & Così fan tutte
Irmgard Seefried, soprano
Karl Böhm; Eugen Jochum; Ferdinand Leitner

CD 15
IRMGARD SEEFRIED SINGS MOZART
Arias and scenes from Il re pastore, Don Giovanni & Le nozze di Figaro
Irmgard Seefried, soprano
Ferdinand Leitner; Ferenc Fricsay

CD 16
ROMANTIC HEROINES
Arias and scenes from Carmen (Bizet), Mignon (Thomas), Der Wildschütz (Lortzing) & Der Freischütz (Weber)
Irmgard Seefried, soprano
Ferdinand Leitner; Jean Fournet; Christoph Stepp; Eugen Jochum

CD 17
IRMGARD SEEFRIED SINGS BEETHOVEN & RICHARD STRAUSS
Scenes from Fidelio, Ariadne auf Naxos (1954 recording) & Der Rosenkavalier
Irmgard Seefried, soprano
Karl Böhm

CD 18
IRMGARD SEEFRIED SINGS SACRED MUSIC
Arias and Duets from Matthäus-Passion (J.S. Bach), Die Schöpfung (Haydn) & Messe solennelle de Ste. Cécile (Gounod)
Irmgard Seefried, soprano
Karl Richter; Igor Markevitch

CD 19
ERIK WERBA BEGLEITET SIE
(Erik Werba Accompanies You)
Erik Werba, piano
First Release on CD

CD 20
IRMGARD SEEFRIED – EIN SELBSTPORTRÄT
(Irmgard Seefried in Person)
First Release on CD