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.

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}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 569 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 514 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 309 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 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.

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.

Frida Leider II - Lebendige Vergangenheit (1994) {Preiser Records 89098 rec 1927-1942}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 177 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 156 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 12 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 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.