Schubert: Der Atlas, D957 No. 8

The internationally renowned opera singer Franz Grundheber is engaged by all important opera houses from Paris to Barcelona, New York, and Hamburg to Vienna. His overwhelming performances of the most diverse characters have delighted audiences over past decades. On this CD the baritone proves himself to be a sensitive and expressive Lieder interpreter.

As the renowned Austrian opera administrator Ioan Holender said: “Franz Grundheber’s quality has influenced the history of the Vienna State Opera – and that’s not all...“

George London was the outstanding Amfortas,Wotan and Dutchman of the late 1950s and early '60s, but also belonged among those singers with a mature vocal technique and intelligent characterisation who were able to enthuse audiences in the concert hall without relying merely on their stage charisma (even though that was present in abundance). At the height of his career, which was cut short tragically, London gave a lieder recital at the Theater an der Wien. It was there that he had laid the foundations of his European career (and thus also of his later, triumphant return to his native North America). London began his recital with the Heine songs from Schubert's Schwanengesang, wandered in the footsteps of Feodor Chaliapin by singing Jacques Ibert's Iberian-influenced Don Quichotte and finally Modest Mussorgski's Songs and Dances of Death - tone paintings of archaic grandeur in which he was wholly in his element. In all three cycles, Erik Werba as accompanist completely lived up to his reputation as a modest, but equal partner. In addition to this live recording from Austrian Radio, ORFEO here offers as a bonus the five songs by Henri Duparc with which George London had ten years earlier made his lieder debut before a microphone, in Canada, the country of his birth.