Edda Moser is unmatched in big, soaring Strauss songs

THE SONGBIRD: Edda Moser was born in Berlin in 1938, the daughter of musicologist Hans Joachim Moser. She studied at the Stern Conservatory and made her debut as Kate Pinkerton in Berlin in 1962. After singing in the Würzburg Opera Chorus, she took principal roles at the opera houses in Hagen, Bielefeld, Hamburg, and Frankfurt. Moser joined the Vienna State Opera in 1971, debuting as Konstanze. She made her U.S. debut in 1968 in "Das Rheingold" at The Met. Other roles there over nine seasons included Donna Anna, Queen of the Night, Konstanze, Armida, Nedda, Musetta, and Liù.

THE MUSIC: Richard Strauss's Brentano Lieder (Op. 68) was written mid-career in 1918 after a 12-year lapse in songwriting during which he had composed many of his major operatic works (Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Die Frau Ohne Schatten). The six songs for piano and voice to poems by Clemens Brentano were dedicated to the German soprano Elisabeth Schumann, and then orchestrated by Strauss in 1940/41 and rededicated variously to Adele Kern and Viorica Ursuleac. The song collection sits high and demands a wide vocal compass, a variety of colors, and extreme dynamics from floating suspensions to bold declamations. It is not uncommon for sopranos to choose to program a few songs from the set that best suit their voice and mood. Here are two of the more dramatic ones that fit Moser's voice perfectly at this period in her career.

00:00 An die Nacht
03:24 Lied der Frauen