STRAUSS: 4 Last Songs / Closing Scene from Capriccio / Orche

Those fortunate enough to attend Glyndebourne know how well Felicity Lott sings operatic Strauss, so it is particularly pleasing that wider and larger audiences enjoy her outstanding performance of the Four Last songs and can now have it on record. . . . [T]he songs are sung in the order of the 1950 first performance, with ''Beim schlafengehen'' first . . . . Emotionally this seems to me an improvement on the published sequence. Lott's radiant singing reminds me of Sena Jurinac in this music. It has a comparable glistening purity and brightness of tone. Her diction is immaculate and the sheer rapture of her phrasing—in a line like ''Sommer lachelt erstaunt'' and especially her profoundly moving delivery of ''So tief im Abendrot'' in the final song—is glorious to hear. The orchestral playing is luminous and rich in detail. -- Gramophone