Karl Propper

Karl Richter's performance dates from 1965, since when it has seldom been out of the catalogue. It is in an entirely different class… Richter's Munich Bach Choir were at a peak at this time and the results are often quite exciting. Under Richter's direction the ''Ehre sei dir, Gott'' chorus…is appropriately lustig with wonderfully light-hearted singing and orchestral playing… [T]he arias with Gundula Janowitz and Fritz Wunderlich…[are] of a calibre which will always ensure considerable enjoyment…

The set has various virtues in its favor. Richter conducts an orchestra of modern instruments somewhat stolidly, but always with lyrical polish and sumptuous tone, and one can enjoy its lush richness, however anachronistic it may be. Nor are his tempos stereotypically sluggish; many of the sprightlier moments bounce along energetically. The soprano role of Cleopatra is sung by a young Tatiana Troyanos, who later became a celebrated mezzo-soprano (and eventually undertook the title role in stage productions, making her perhaps the first singer in history to undertake the roles of both Cleopatra and Caesar). It’s interesting to hear her in her earlier soprano incarnation. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau makes a valiant baritone effort at Caesar’s alto arias and, while he avoids the woolly grumbling some bass-baritones make of the part, seems less than emotionally committed. His second aria, “L’empio diro, tu sei,” for example, sounds polite and cautious rather than raging and indignant.

Franz Schmidt was not only a brilliant cellist, but also a gifted pianist who mastered almost the entire piano repertoire with ease. Nevertheless, he had a kind of love-hate relationship with the piano, since his great passion was for the organ. This did not prevent him, however, from writing numerous works for the left hand alone, all of them commissioned by the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein and including the Beethoven Variations, Piano Concerto in E-flat major and Quintets. Schmidt's output for piano two-hands, however, comprised only one work – the melancholic Romance, which he dedicated to his English teacher Geoffrey Sephton in 1922. Karl-Andreas Kolly remarks: “The fact that I have decided to arrange three of Franz Schmidt’s organ works for piano has primarily to do with my great passion for his music. And also a little with my hope that in a piano version, his organ works might possibly reach a wider audience”.