You are considering whether to buy a product. You look at the reviews. Would the following review decrease or increase the chances of you buying the product?
Review title: A strongly unified performance
Product review: This is perhaps my favorite recording of Winterreise, if only because there is a strong sense that the performers are on the same page. It is almost as if a stage director had focused the psychological details of each song and the shape of the cycle as a whole. Thomas Allen's slightly gruff voice works well in depicting the social outcast and Roger Vignoles' piano work has a clarity of specifics. I might quibble with a few slow tempos in the second half of the opus, but the pair obviously agree on the dramatic interpretation being put forth.(Contrast this to the Thomas Hampson/Wolfgang Sawallisch recording. Maestro S gives an intimate parlor reading of the work while Hampson leads a full-blown operatic assault.)This being a double CD set, you get the added treat of Arleen Auger singing a recital of some Schubert favorites. All in all a superb value.
