From All Music Guide: Recording place:Philharmonie am Gasteig, Munich

This is the second time Renée Fleming has recorded Strauss' Four Last Songs, and she gives a serene, luminous performance. One of the glories of her handling of the songs is the variety of vocal colors she brings to them. For instance, "Frühling" begins with a throaty duskiness that gives way to silky gossamer as the poetic imagery lifts from "somber shadows" to "blue skies." The details of Fleming's interpretation are always rooted in a sure sense of the songs' larger musical trajectory. She has performed this work more than any other; besides having a voice and temperament ideally suited to the songs, she brings a career's worth of experience singing them, giving her both interpretive freedom and deeply considered insight. In the program notes, she is quoted as saying, "When I started learning the epic Four Last Songs, it soon became clear to me that, no matter how well the songs were sung, it was the overall pacing of the piece, comb...

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