CLASSICAL

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson,

"Lorraine at Emmanuel"

(Avie)

Contralto Lorraine Hunt Lieberson will soon have more posthumous records to her name than live ones, so vastly have her recordings sold since her death two summers ago at age 52.

A viola player who found her voice while freelancing in Boston orchestras, Lorraine enjoyed brief fame at the summits of opera before falling victim to breast cancer.

The Bach cantatas and Handel arias presented here are pre-fame performances in Boston's Emmanuel Church with an orchestra of old friends and an ambience that is devout in Bach and declamatory in Handel, not an easy fit. Her Sunday-morning Bach style is reminiscent of Kathleen Ferrier at her most touching and orotund, every consonant an immaculate offering.

In scenes from Handel's "Hercules," a concert rarity, she switches to brimstone and heartbreak, bringing a Purcell-like translucence to the lament, "When beauty sorrow's liv'ry wears." The only shortcoming on this church-owned record of her emergent gifts is the over-friendliness of the accompaniment. Spurred on by fiercer conductors than the resident Craig Smith and John Harbison, Lorraine could -- and did -- melt mountains.

NORMAN LEBRECHT, Evening Standard (London)