St. Cecilia Mass is the common name of a solemn mass in G major by Charles Gounod, composed in 1855 and scored for three soloists, mixed choir, orchestra and organ. The official name is Messe solennelle en l’honneur de Sainte-Cécile, in homage of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music. The work was assigned CG 56 in the catalogue of the composer's works.

Tosca was the role in which – in 1965, the year this recording was made – Callas gave her last complete performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera and the Paris Opéra. This was her final complete recording of an opera, and, 12 years after her first version of Tosca, it reunited her with the Scarpia of Tito Gobbi. They were joined by Carlo Bergonzi as Cavaradossi. Gramophone praised ‘a thrilling and very complete interpretation, with scene after scene, bar after bar, brought to life by sheer intelligence and dramatic insight’.

Although the bel canto repertoire was crucial to Callas’s career, and she played a significant part in reviving its fortunes, she never sang any of the roles – from both serious and comic operas – that are represented in this recital. Gramophone said: ‘It is extraordinary how the whole quality and color of Callas’ voice changes as she moves from one character to another – for example, from the grand manner appropriate to the Babylonian queen [Semiramide] to the passion of the spoiled Italian duchess [Lucrezia Borgia] and thence to the simple charm of the countrywoman Adina [L’elisir d’amore]’.

This recital of Austro-German repertoire (albeit composed to Italian and English texts) was prompted by Callas’s indignation on discovering that her EMI producer, Walter Legge, had chosen his wife, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, for a recording of the Verdi Requiem. ‘If your wife can sing my repertoire, then I can sing hers,’ declared Callas.

Only one of the roles represented in this Verdi recital figured in Callas’s stage repertoire: Elisabetta in Don Carlo, which she performed at La Scala in 1954. From the same opera she also sings Eboli’s mezzo-soprano showpiece “O don fatale”, a feature of her recitals in the early 1960s. An adventurous choice are Mina’s arias from the rarely-heard Aroldo (Verdi’s reworking of Stiffelio): ‘The vivid pronunciation of the words, the burning emotion conveyed by tone-color, and the powerful and eloquent sense of rhythm, are all memorable. So is the fearless quality of Callas’s singing,’ said Gramophone. When it came to Desdemona’s scene from Act IV of Otello, the critic wrote: ‘Verdi’s music is brought to life as by no other artist. Her voice is in fine state: very beautiful, and drawing a full glorious line’.

As in her first Callas à Paris recital, recorded two years previously, the diva performs arias of diverse weight, colour and mood - from the darker tones of Berlioz's Marguerite to the brilliant 'Jewel Song' of Gounod's Marguerite, and from the mezzo-ish melancholy of Massenet's Charlotte to the soprano coquetry of the same composer's Manon. 'Simply as an artist,' wrote Gramophone in its review of the recital, 'in her sense of line, her feeling for a word, her command of colour and her mastery of the whole complex art of interpretation - [Callas] is so far ahead of all other contemporary singers, and of all but the greatest past singers, too, that she almost spoils us for the rest.'