With a music-loving friend (in his 80s)
we once started to listen to Richard Strauss's Vier letzte Lieder
in a 2016 broadcast performance featuring Diana Damrau and a
Bavarian orchestra conducted by Kirill Petrenko. After the first
song, my friend said he'd had enough, since he couldn't stand
Damrau's vibrato any more.
Diana Damrau has a lovely voice, and
she is a wonderful musician, so I bought her latest CD since I like
Strauss's songs, and the CD has around 20 Lieder, with the excellent
Helmut Deutsch as pianist. The CD also contains the Four Last
Songs, where the Bavarian Radio Orchestra is conducted by Mariss
Jansons, with superb violin solos in Beim Schlafengehen, (and
Morgen), from Anton Barakhovsky. All well and good, and a fine
CD. But Damrau's wobbly vibrato does grate on the nerves,
particularly in the many slower works on the disc. At times it almost
induces seasickness. I certainly do not subscribe to the school of thought that says vibrato is a bad thing; but vibrato needs to be applied tastefully and judiciously. I suppose one cannot have it all, so the CD
misses its third star.
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