Zeit 2024

Austrian vocalist Udo Jürgens is best known as the winner of the 1966 Eurovision Song Contest. But a career that spans over four decades has established him as one of the European mainland's most popular performers; his combined international sales exceed over 100 million units. Jürgens was born on September 30, 1934, in Klagenfurt, Austria. He was just 16 when he won an Austrian radio songwriting competition with "Je T'Aime." His success built from there over the next decade and, in 1961, he scored his first international hit when his composition "Reach for the Stars" was recorded by Shirley Bassey. Three years later, Matt Monro was similarly successful with Jürgens' "Walk Away" – a song that the Englishman first encountered at the 1964 Eurovision Song Contest, where Jürgens, representing Austria, performed it in its original language as "Warum Nur Waru." Jürgens finished fifth in the 1964 Eurovision event; the following year he finished fourth with "Sag Ihr, Ich Lass Sie Grüben." The third time proved the charm: he sang "Merci Chérie" to glory in 1966. (English singer Vince Hill promptly scored a U.K. hit with an English-language version of the song.)

Over 35 years after their legendary first recording of Bach's famous Christmas Oratorio, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, present this album featuring a new reading of the masterpiece. It was recorded at the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in London on two evenings in December 2022.