Stotijn's latest well-earned recital disc takes the imaginative high ground right at the start...In the booklet-notes, Stotijn eloquently explains why they travelled to Schiermonnikoog (or 'Grey Monk Island') for the shoot, and how she chose the programme. The programme matters most, of course, though all the incidentals help make this a winner. The Richard Strauss sequence has its own logic of lively versus reflective

a singer whose voice and intelligence melded seamlessly with words, vocal line and whatever dramatic concert was at hand...Stotijn's vivid performances make you examine the texts anew just to appreciate her sudden burst of vocal colour ('Zueignung' goes into the Jessye Norman zone) or her onomatopoeic effects, which give the characters within the songs a near-physical presence....Stotijn is God's gift to Christa Ludwig admirers.

Stotijn confronts [Kindertotenlieder's] emotions with acute sensitivity, and then leaves us with the benediction of Strauss’s “Morgen!”. A connoisseur’s recital.