Schubert: Am Meer, D 957 No. 12

Christoph Sökler has devoted himself entirely to the study of the voice and has graduated with honours from a number of institutions, including the Guildhall in London. He has studied with Fischer-Dieskau and Elisabeth Schwartzkopf. His repertoire ranges from Schütz to contemporary music and he has performed throughout Europe.

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.