By 1941, in her fifties, Lotte Lehmann was gradually winding down her illustrious operatic career. Noted for following her own musical and interpretative inclinations rather than obeying stylistic fashions, the long-serving soprano was still very active in the field of Lieder, particularly with Bruno Walter as her accompanist. With her impassioned delivery, warm tone, telling word-painting and occasional use of portamento, Lehmann makes her own very personal yet utterly compelling case for Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -Leben and Dichterliebe. In the excerpts from Winterreise, for many years the province of male singers, she offers a bold, romantic reading that identifies both with the bleak setting and the protagonist’s awful situation. Volumes 1 and 2 of the Naxos Lotte Lehmann Lieder series are available on 8.111093 and 8.111094.