"This is a rich a faultless programme ... The encores are wonderful, the Handel especially getting a smattering of applause from the delighted audience before the first note begins. Lieberson’s reputation obviously preceded her across the pond. Julius Drake, as always, is paired at the hip with the singer, and you can hardly speak of one without the other. Sound is excellent, with notes, tests, and translation. Superb"

"In this Wigmore Hall recital, Hunt brings her trademark warmth, focus and immaculate phrasing to the Schumann cycle Frauenliebe und leben"

"Aside from the awe-inspiring beauty of her sound, Hunt Lieberson and pianist Julius Drake bring an unforgettable directness and intensity to Brahms’s 8 Songs Op. 57 ... a beautiful, even heart-rending, disc"
 

"The luminous mezzo voice of Hunt Lieberson is beautifully captured here at a Wigmore Hall solo recital in 1999, six years before her death from cancer at the age of 52"
 

"We should treasure every recording made by the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson ... This Wigmore Hall recital captures those special qualities of introspective intuition that marked her out as a great artist, indeed one of the greatest. Julius Drake is the masterly pianist ... Prepare to be overcome"

 

"Another outstanding Wigmore Hall recital from the late Hunt Lieberson ... This is a disc that every lover of song will want under their Christmas tree"

"Lorraine, usually heard in oratorio and baroque opera, was a lieder singer of the utmost sensitivity and colorific variation"

"no mezzo alive could match her luminous intensity in the music she made her own ... her fans still can’t get enough of a singer whose early training as a violist must have something to do with the refined musicality she brings to these exquisite songs"

"One of the finest recordings of Frauenliebe und -leben currently available. A sense of hushed diffidence opens this deeply thoughtful performance, in which time is taken to reveal a shudder of timid sensuousness here, a dark intimation of mortality there. And all - even the daringly slow last song - within an easeful, instinctively shaped line"
 

"It’s rare that something arrives so enticing that I can’t wait top open it. But a new disc of mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson singing at Wigmore Hall in 1999 definitely qualifies ... Hunt Lieberson is an artist who gets under your skin, and perhaps I am already liking her Schumann in ways that I’m not even aware of yet"