Maria Callas died on September 16, 1977; exactly 22 years later, September 16, 1999, Gundula Janowitz gave a recital in Athens, the city where her great colleague had grown up, and dedicated it in Callas’ memory. Now, in time for Janowitz’s 80th birthday, on August 2, 2017, a recording of that occasion – which was to be her very final public recital – is released at last. Callas and Janowitz had hardly shared a repertoire but what they both had were voices that were utterly distinctive, recognisable from the first note. Janowitz worked and recorded extensively throughout the 1960s and 1970s with all the leading conductors of the day: Karajan, Klemperer, Kempe, Kubelík, Kleiber, Solti, Bernstein and Haitink to pick but the most prominent. And the repertoire she focused on was built around two towering figures: Mozart and Richard Strauss. For her Athens recital, Janowitz chose two composers absolutely at the centre of her Lied repertoire, Franz Schubert and Richard Strauss, with a third, Robert Schumann, forming a bridge between the two. She was 62 years old by then, but the voice remains impeccable, crystal-clear, without a trace of a single wobble. One could only wish that all opera and Lied singers were in such remarkable shape at that age. © SM/Qobuz