Simultaneously sad and uplifting, you’ll be hard pushed to find a performance to match this one for emotional intensity and ability to move the listener...Hunt Lieberson’s rich, pure voice, which showed itself over the years to be suited to so many different musical styles and periods, captures the sensuous Flamenco/Blues style perfectly.

Not so long ago, 'lush' and 'romantic' were words that would never figure in a description of Peter Lieberson's music. 'Rigorous', perhaps; 'intellectually stimulating', definitely. Of its integrity there was never any question. But deep down, the works were spun with the kind of cool brilliance that commands respect but rarely invites love.
Then Lieberson met Lorraine Hunt, and for the next nine years – until her death from breast cancer in July 2006 – the Ice Man of music slowly melted.
Tributes to the mezzo-soprano have come in from all corners of the musical globe but none is more touching than The Neruda Songs, jointly commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orches- tra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and premiered only a year or so before her death. What makes this collaboration particularly poignant is that, like any offspring, one can find traits of both parents: Lieberson's cerebral qualities are warmly humanised, Hunt Lieberson's shimmering vocal sensuality restrained from over-indulgence. These brilliantly crafted songs deserve all the attention they can get; after a respectful period of mourning, other singers need to pick up the mantle.
Clearly this piece is a big advancement for Lieberson. The famously complex Lieberson now has the gift to be simple, and his future works bear watching. That spiritual connection comes around all too rarely and would that it could be repeated. Unfortunately, at slightly more than 30 minutes, this recording is all we've got.

Nobody who heard the voice of the American mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson remained unaffected. She had an extraordinary capacity for emotional connection, such that her performances seemed to penetrate the very marrow of those fortunate enough to witness them. Inextricable from the passion she brought to her music was an incomparable beauty of phrasing, a matchless, velvety tone and a quality, barely definable, of rapture. Her artistic powers were still in full and glorious flow; she was one of the greatest mezzos of our age. A woman of immense grace, she was disarming in her candour and warmth.