farewell to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf--

"Legge, later artistic director of EMI records, would sit in a stage box while Schwarzkopf sang, watching for the exact moment when women fumbled in their handbags for handkerchiefs and men tugged them from their breast pockets. He recalled: "We tried for years and once or twice succeeded in achieving Pamina's "Ach, ich f�hl's" so heartbreakingly that there was no applause." Some critics felt that there was element of calculation in this which robbed Schwarzkopf's performances of their spontaneity; but what no one could deny was that over the years her voice became richer, warmer and ever more accurately focussed."

Note: It's worth registering with the Daily Torygraph just for the obits if you're that sort of person: completest, best and drollest in print or on the web, especially good for tinder-dry accounts of the superhuman exploits of old sailors and soldiers with names like "Cuddles" and "Flaps"...today also found that Keith Moon's poor long-suffering ex-wife Kim had passed, and the navigator of my dad's ship "Bellona" on the arctic convoys and D-day...