Friedrich Schorr

Wagner at The Met is the first authorized release of Richard Wagner's operatic masterpieces, including the complete Ring Cycle, captured live in historic broadcasts from The Metropolitan Opera.

This magnificent compilation of the greatest Wagner singers and conductors of the 20s and early 30s is an absolute MUST for everyone who is remotely interrested in how Wagner was done in the past.
The greatest attractions are the magnificent interpretations of Friedrich Schorr, Frida Leider and the young Lauritz Melchior. Schorr sings Wotan in the excerpts from Die Walkure and Leider sings Brunnhilde. Melchior sings the young Siegfried.

From the notes: "The Story of This Recording: Jenny Lind's contribution to the first performances of the B minor Mass has a parallel in this recording where another opera singer, Elizabeth Schumann, is the soprano soloist in the first complete B minor Mass to be committed to disc. While the Philharmonic Choir and London Symphony Orchestra needed much of the rehearsal time, sessions were so arranged as to take advantage of the presence in London of Elisabeth Schumann and the celebrated baritone, Friedrich Schorr, both under contract for the summer Season of opera at Covent Garden. Walter Widdop, the tenor, was also singing there, but he and Margaret Balfour, a mezzo soprano who was greatly esteemed for her work in oratorio, both lived in London. The conductor Albert Coates, normally associated with Russian music rather than with Bach's also had a comittment at Covent Garden, but was able to devote his complete concentration to the recording because his operatic performances were not scheduled until June. The recording was issued promptly in November 1929 on seventeen plum label 78s."

Frida Leider II - Lebendige Vergangenheit (1994) {Preiser Records 89098 rec 1927-1942}
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© 1927-42, 1994 Preiser Records | 89098
Classical / Vocal / Opera / Historic Recordings

Frida Leider was the greatest Wagner soprano of her day, roughly the 1920s and '30s. Her fame has been eclipsed by such successors as Flagstad and Nilsson, but recordings reveal her to have most of their strengths along with more vocal warmth. Listen to her Immolation Scene from Wagner's Gotterdammerung, and you hear a truly extraordinary performance–a huge, shining voice used with consummate intelligence and verbal pointing, pinpoint intonation, and wild abandon kept in firm control. Her Walkure duet with Friedrich Schorr, "Nun zaume dein Ross," is another highlight among many on this disc, all of whose Wagner items were recorded in her prime. The songs, too, from 1941-42, with Michael Raucheisen accompanying, are beautifully done.

Born in London of Italian-French parents, Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970) trained as a cellist and played in theatre and café orchestras before joining the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood in 1916. His conducting career began with the formation of his own orchestra in 1924, and between 1926 and 1933 he was active as an opera conductor at Covent Garden and elsewhere. Orchestral appointments followed: the Scottish Orchestra (1933–36), the New York Philharmonic (1936–42), the Hallé Orchestra (1943–70) and the Houston Symphony (1961–67). Barbirolli guest conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras and was especially admired as an interpreter of the music of Mahler, Sibelius, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Puccini and Verdi. He made many outstanding recordings, including the complete Brahms and Sibelius symphonies, as well as operas by Verdi and Puccini and much English repertoire.

Born in London of Italian-French parents, Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970) trained as a cellist and played in theatre and café orchestras before joining the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood in 1916. His conducting career began with the formation of his own orchestra in 1924, and between 1926 and 1933 he was active as an opera conductor at Covent Garden and elsewhere. Orchestral appointments followed: the Scottish Orchestra (1933–36), the New York Philharmonic (1936–42), the Hallé Orchestra (1943–70) and the Houston Symphony (1961–67). Barbirolli guest conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras and was especially admired as an interpreter of the music of Mahler, Sibelius, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Puccini and Verdi. He made many outstanding recordings, including the complete Brahms and Sibelius symphonies, as well as operas by Verdi and Puccini and much English repertoire.

Richard Strauss - Selected Lieder Recordings 1901-1946 (2014) {3CD Set Marston Sesquicentennial Edition 53017-2}
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© 1901-46, 2014 Marston | 53017-2
Classical / Vocal / Early 20th Century / Historical

Richard Strauss’s (1864–1949) acceptance into the pantheon of great Lieder composers began in the early 1950s, perhaps marked by the enthusiastic reception of his Four Last Songs, premiered by Kirsten Flagstad eight months after Strauss’s death. It wasn’t long before these songs became widely performed, and by extension, his Lieder as a whole, began to gain greater acceptance as high art along with Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Wolf. This compilation concentrates on Strauss Lieder recordings from an earlier era that display the sort of vocal charm and straightforward approach to the music not usually heard in today’s style of Lieder singing. Many of these recordings are extremely important historic documents retaining their position as the definitive versions of Strauss Lieder. Some of the singers included here not only knew Strauss, but worked with him, and their recordings could have been heard and judged by him. This three CD-set contains forty songs in eighty-two performances by fifty-seven singers.