[ Decca Australian Eloquence / CD ]
Release Date: Wednesday 20 July 2016
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Gifted with great beauty and a natural stage presence, Hilde Gueden was unfailingly easy on the ear as well as the eye. With her creamy tone and ability to spin the silvery upper-register sonority needed for her Strauss roles, she was a natural successor to Elisabeth Schumann, Lotte Schöne and Adele Kern. Fortunately for posterity, she recorded prolifically and in the LP era she worked mainly for Decca, taking part in many opera and operetta sets.
Most of the Mozart arias here were among Gueden's first studio recordings. The first two were set down on her initial visit to London in 1947, with the LSO under Josef Krips, and four more were made two years later with the same accompanists. All were intended for 78rpm release and four came out in that form; but two, overtaken by the arrival of 33rpm LPs, were not released until the CD era.
These Mozart portraits establish some of Gueden's best qualities, the creamy tone, even from top to bottom, the rhythmic poise and the mercurial, sometimes cheeky personality. The late 1940s and 1950s in Vienna seem like a golden age of Mozart singing, and Hilde Gueden played her part in it.
"Voi che sapete" and "Deh vieni" are both given excellent performances, the latter with its recitative "Giunse alfin" and here Gueden is on her home ground […] the recording is really excellent" (Gramophone on the original release of Figaro)
Non so più cosa son, cosa faccio (from Le nozze di Figaro)
London Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips
Deh vieni, non tardar (from Le nozze di Figaro)
London Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips
Batti, batti, o bel Masetto (from Don Giovanni)
London Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips
Vedrai, carino (from Don Giovanni)
London Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips
In uomini, in soldati (from Così fan tutte)
London Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips
Una donna a quindici anni (from Così fan tutte)
London Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips
Exsultate, jubilate, K165
Wiener Philharmoniker, Alberto Erede
L'amerò, sarò costante (from Il re pastore)
Wiener Philharmoniker, Alberto Erede
Ach, ich fühl's (from Die Zauberflöte, K620)
Wiener Philharmoniker, Alberto Erede
Venite, inginocchiatevi (from Le nozze di Figaro)
Wiener Philharmoniker, Alberto Erede
Giunse alfin il momento... Deh, vieni, non tardar… (from Le nozze di Figaro)
Wiener Philharmoniker, Clemens Krauss
Se il padre perdei (from Idomeneo)
Wiener Philharmoniker, Clemens Krauss
Non più, tutto ascoltai - Non temer, amato bene, K490
Wiener Philharmoniker, Clemens Krauss
Voi che sapete (from Le nozze di Figaro)
Wiener Philharmoniker, Clemens Krauss
Cosa mi narri? … Sull'aria
with Lisa Della Casa (soprano)
Wiener Philharmoniker, Erich Kleiber