A lieder star is born with this disc, a wonderful showcase for a soprano with little to learn about lyrical radiance and using the voice to tell stories. Damrau’s Salzburg Festival recital, taped live last summer, presents late-Romantic jewels, some familiar (Mahler, Berg, Wolf) and some rare, like Zemlinsky’s Waltz Songs of 1898, unusually joyful for this composer. The pianist Stephan Matthias Lademann provides sensitive support.
(Orfeo)