Strauss, (R.): Lieder

"Always there is delicacy and an absolute respect for the silky legato that Strauss demands from his soloist. Damrau finds drama in these songs too...the songs that demand diamond-bright coloratura, runs and trills to affright a Zerbinetta hold no terrors...Thielemann has a very special affinity with singers. He also coaxes some fine playing from the Munich orchestra."
(International Record Review)

"What wins this disc the five stars are the facts that Damrau, singing in her native German, is poised ideally between dreamy haze and Schwarzkopfian fussiness...her hallowed pianissimos allow the exquisite detail Thielemann draws from his Munich players to shine...the ineffable balance between voice and orchestra, subtly assisted by the engineering, is a treat throughout."
(BBC Music Five Stars)

"Secure in technique, gifted in projecting drama and emotion, Damrau is a peach of a singer...The haunting music; the lyrical voice; the orchestra's dappled array, with woodwinds curling like climbing roses and violins wafting with fragrant perfume: poesie indeed, in small doses."
(The Times)

"she is not merely a fair-weather soprano. Darker shades, more serious tones lie within her expressive scope than one might at first suppose...Familiar songs such as "Ständchen" gain new life with a smiling intimacy of approach in the first verse and an enriched suggestiveness as dusk falls in the third."
(Gramophone)