Customer Reviews

Complete Columbia Recordings

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This collection of Ljuba Welitsch's singing Strauss is an great example of a singer's cultural connection to a composer giving her an almost eerily innate feeling for the music. Welitsch's voice can only be described as sexy, in a pre-war German sort of way, silvery hard and focused in tone combined with a sensuality of expression that is unique. She breathes life and fire into this music in a way that later singers -- even the great Elisabeth Schwarzkopf -- could not.

I'm more into swing music of the 1930's - 1940's (as well as the movies); not a big Classical listener. I do love Stokowski's 1930s-40s recordings, though, as it's so "rich", it reminds me of the somewhat melodramatic (by today's standards), yet still very effective & moving, movie scores from the 1930s-40s era. Same thing with this CD set. I first eard it at someone else's house, and had to get a copy for myself. Like other reviewers said, very sensuous, in a vintage kind of way. I can see Humphrey Bogart taking Lauren Bacall out to a night at the opera when I hear this. If you love the general era of the 1930s-40s, you'll especially love this (even though I think it was actually recorded around 1950).