CD

John McCormack, Deutsche Lieder 1914-1936 (Hamburger Archiv für Gesangskunst). When not singing “Mother Machree” and “The Garden Where the Praties Grow,” Ireland’s favorite tenor was a dead-serious recitalist who had a knack for bringing out the ballad-like quality of German art songs. This beautifully remastered imported CD contains all twenty-seven of his surviving recordings of songs by Brahms, Mendelssohn, Raff, Schubert, Schumann, and Wolf. Some are performed in English, others in Irish-tinged German, but all are sung with a combination of straightforwardness and sweet lyricism that I find completely charming. Would that McCormack had recorded twice as many Lieder, but to hear him singing Wolf’s “Herr, was trägt der Boden hier” (his favorite art song) is to be reminded of how lucky we are to live in the age of recorded sound (TT).