Fritz Wunderlich

One of the greatest and most revolutionary composers of the nineteenth century, Richard Wagner transformed the realm of musical drama. Years before his towering successes of the Ring Cycle, Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, he wrote the now lesser‐performed The Flying Dutchman, an opera that marks the beginning of Wagner’s mature works.

The opera – premiered in Dresden in 1843 – is based on Heinrich Heine’s telling of the legend in which the captain of a ghostly vessel, The Flying Dutchman, is doomed to roam the seas for all eternity until he wins the love of a woman. The fate of the Dutchman is said to have struck Wagner as a mirror image of his own disastrous fate in Paris; having expected the city to hail him as a genius, he was left bitterly disappointed. From the outset, the overture depicts the vast expanse of the rolling sea and hints at the despair that is to come, while weaving together other leitmotifs that will reoccur later in the work.

Other highlights include Senta’s heartfelt ballad from Act II, the Dutchman’s soliloquy ‘Die Frist ist um’ and the raucous shanty that is the Sailors’ Chorus. The role of the Dutchman is sung by legendary lyric baritone Dietrich Fischer‐ Dieskau, described by The Guardian as ‘the most influential singer of the 20th century’. Playing his love interest, Senta, is Marianne Schech, while Gottlob Frick takes the role of her father. The soloists are supported by the Chor der deutschen Staatsoper Berlin and the Staatskapelle Berlin, conducted by Franz Konwitschny.

Fritz Wunderlich frequently sang the tenor part in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on Schiller’s “Ode to joy”, but he never recorded it on LP. His contribution makes this live recording of a 1962 concert at the Hessischer Rundfunk a rarity and closes a gap in the discographic legacy of the singer who died so prematurely. Wunderlich’s cantabile performance style ennobles the tenor solo in the “alla Marcia“ style, and he smoothly blends into the excellent line-up of soloists: Shige Yano (soprano), Marga Höffgen (alto) and Theo Adam (bass-baritone). The conductor is Dean Dixon, the first Afro-American to hold the post of chief conductor (1961-1974) of a German Radio Symphony Orchestra.

The cast list of this 1962 Electrola production reads like a 'who's who' of postwar German record history. Jürgen Kesting wrote of Fritz Wunderlich: “The recording of Bach’s St John Passion (Karl Forster) shows how the pure and silvery sound of his voice was able to convey a spiritual message

Smetana’s masterpiece with Fritz Wunderlich: Among the German-language recordings, experts agree that this is the best: Fritz Wunderlich at the height of his powers, Pilar Lorengar in what is “perhaps her best recording” (Jürgen Kesting) and Gottlob Frick, who lends the comic character of the marriage broker a hint of authority and dignity. Last but not least, Rudolf Kempe conducts with controlled panache.

Recorded in 1962

In 1956 Fritz Wunderlich together with colleagues Friederike Sailer, Margarete Bence and August Messthaler set down complete versions of three Bach choral works – the Magnificat, the Cantata BWV 31 and the Easter Oratorio. They were recorded for Philips in France. Both, the oratorio and the cantata Der Himmel lacht, Die Erde jubilieret (‘The heavens laugh, the Earth rejoices’) were written for use at Easter, and together with the Magnificat are some of Bach’s most joyous outpourings of sacred choral music. Then, as now, it is Wunderlich’s presence on these recordings that has and probably will inspire purchasers to acquire these recordings, with the 25-year-old Wunderlich then in the full flower of his youth, shortly after his professional debut at age 25. At the time he was under contract to the Württemberg Staatstheater in Stuttgart, and on the brink on international fame.

These recordings date from 1956, before it had become common to perform Bach’s music using period instruments (or copies thereof) and in a ‘historically-informed’ style. Nevertheless, Marcel Couraud’s readings have much to recommend them. This French conductor, born in 1912, had a superb education. Charles Munch instructed

him in conducting and Nadia Boulanger – the woman who taught so many of the twentieth century’s composers – instructed him in composition. He was also trained as an organist. Although most of his career was spent in France, where he died in 1986, in 1954 he came to Stuttgart to conduct what at that time was known as a ‘Bach Choir’ and ‘Bach Orchestra.’

This performance was recorded in the WDR Studios in Cologne in September 1959.