Geoffrey A. Hirt

No matter how passionate soprano Barbara Bonney gets, she never loses the unsullied purity of her tone. And in this 1994 disc of Schubert songs, Bonney often has cause to get passionate: her artless Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (D. 965) is transformed by passionate virtuosity, her mournful Mignon Lieder (D. 877) are transcended by passion, and her ecstatic Ganymed (D. 544) is transfigured by passion. But through all of it, Bonney's tone stays pure, the voice of stainless innocence in the face of sorrow, shame and even death. This is almost – but not quite always – a good thing. Bonney can surely sing the songs: her voice is sweet and her technique is graceful…

2007 release of a mammoth box set of 50 CD's with key recordings from the Angel/EMI Music classical catalog. Performers include Yehudi Menuhin, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Quatuor Hongrois, Heutling Quartet, Erich Leinsdorf, Jean-Philippe Collard & Augustin Dumay & Frdric Lodon, Christian Zacharias, Paolo Bordoni, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Geoffrey Parsons, Lucia Popp, Barbara Hendricks, Radu Lupu and many more.

She sang all the major mezzo roles, and also some in the dramatic soprano repertory, notably Leonora in Fidelio, Lady Macbeth and the Marschallin. Her voice is a rich, expressive mezzo capable of dramatic incisiveness and even throughout its considerable range. Her upper register in mezzo music is excintingly projected. Although this compilation is composed of different recordings in different settings in different years, all of them show a young Ludwig when she had not yet acquired her prime and her status of, arguably, the best mezzo of the world, which would arrive in the years to come.