Herringel Eugen

Just in time for the 80th anniversary of Eugen Cicero, IN+OUT Records raises a treasure from its archive and releases a concert gem, that was counted for lost. On October 5, 1992, the pioneer of crossover played along with Paul Kuhn, his big band fellow from Berlin, at the Bernhard Theatre located in the basement of the Zurich opera in front of around 300 people. This is also the first posthumous release of Paul Kuhn on IN+OUT Records, the label, which signed responsible for last 25 years of Kuhn’s creative work.

Now, completing Jochum’s entire recorded legacy on DG and Philips, comes Jochum’s Complete Opera and Choral Recordings. These 38 CDs include creative and insightful bonus content, original jacket presentation plus a newly-remastered and new-to-DG CD set of Wagner’s Lohengrin with the sensational yet little-known Lorenz Fehenberger, described by Sir Georg Solti as, “one of the most extraordinary tenor talents I have ever worked with.” This latter operatic addition to the catalogue also becomes a stand-alone digital album. Social tools and a trailer will be announced shortly. Booklet notes include an introduction by Jochum’s daughter who clearly understood her father’s art and musicianship.

One composer damned to musty obscurity not too long ago was Eugen d'Albert; while regarded as one of history's legendary pianists, his composing activity – which spans an especially interesting period from the 1880s to the early '30s – was seen as a stick-in-the-mud retention of German post-romanticism and therefore an unnecessary pursuit. However, his 1903 operetta Tiefland never left the repertory of the German-speaking stage, and it is the Theater Osnabrück that is co-branding CPO's release Eugen d'Albert: Symphony Op. 4 – Seejungfrauen Op. 15, which features the in-house symphony, the Osnabrücker Symphonieorchester under the baton of general music director Hermann Bäumer. The Osnabrück Symphony is a notably compact band usually numbering around 45 pieces, but it has a big sound nonetheless, captured generously in this fine CPO recording.