Fritz Wunderlich

One of Fritz Wunderlich’s (1930–1966) most fascinating qualities was his incredible range of musical skills. He was probably Germany’s greatest tenor who could perform virtually anything in the repertoire for high male voice – from Schlager music to arias from J. S. Bach's Passions; from Mozart to music of the 20th century; from the greatest tenor hits of all times to unknown gems. His musicality and his seriousness as an artist turned everything he sang into something extraordinary.

The pearl of great price: the German tenor who could make you wish to retract all you ever thought, wrote or spoke about the species, the Mozart tenor who could sound both elegant and manly, the singer who could almost persuade you that Strauss loved the tenor voice as he did the soprano. We hear Wunderlich in this collection additionally as Rossini’s Almaviva, scrupulous with his triplets and almost as careful with his scales. His “Il mio tesoro” drops not a semiquaver and takes the long phrases with confident ease.

Vocalist Fritz Wunderlich's legacy is an impressive quantity of recordings, from popular music to Operetta, German and Italian operas and German Lied, additionally he sang baroque and spiritual works.
This is glorious compilation of Mr. Wunderlich's astounding recordings. To my knowledge, this 10 CD box set has not been available in America. Here, as never before, we find most of the recordings being made when he was 26 years old! I highly recommend purchasing this for your collection!

Stories about Wunderlich's meteoric rise to success, his incredibly heavy workload or his seemingly effortless acquisition of new repertoire have been told again and again - sometimes painting an idealized and sometimes a distorted picture of the artist. The nine installments of the SWR retrospective that have been released by SWR CLASSIC to this day feature Fritz Wunderlich as a singer of songs, (an unequalled) Mozart tenor, a brilliant interpreter of the greatest tenor hits, a fascinating singer of operettas and as a tasteful interpreter of light music, to name but a few of the genres that made up his repertoire.

September 17, 2016 marked 50 years since the death of one of the worlds greatest tenors, Fritz Wunderlich. Blessed with a crystal-clear voice, exquisite diction and a natural lyricism, Wunderlichs DG recordings form a special chapter in the labels history.

Fritz Wunderlich's lyricism, boundless musicianship and exquisite diction made him one of the great tenors of the 20th century. In September 2016, DG will commemorate the 50th anniversary of his death with the release of Complete Studio Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon, a comprehensive 32CD box set of sacred works, opera and operetta, lieder and popular song. The collection includes Decca, Philips and Polydor recordings as well, several appearing internationally for the first time.