Wagner: Wesendonck-Lieder - Mahler: Rückert-Lieder (Live from Salzburg)

Few singers capture so vividly the elation and heartbreak of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder as Elīna Garanča in these poignant recitals from the 2020 and 2021 Salzburg Festivals. At a time when live music was fighting for its survival amid global lockdowns, Wagner’s inner turmoil over an unrequited love affair echoes louder still. The Vienna Philharmonic brings a chamber-like intimacy to Felix Mottl’s orchestrations of Wagner’s original piano accompaniments, floating gently over Garanča’s golden voice in the devastatingly intense “Im Treibhaus”. Mahler’s equally soul-searching song cycle Rückert-Lieder, with its final note of resignation—“Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” (“I am lost to the world”)—casts a hypnotic spell.