Kurt Weill - From Berlin to Broadway Vol. II (1997) {2CD Set, Pearl GEMM CDS 9294}
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© 1997 Pearl | GEMM CDS 9294
Classical / Stage & Screen / Cabaret / Opera / Jazz

Did coming to America dull one of this century's most talented composers of music for the German theater? Nonsense. Kurt Weill simply turned into one of this century's most talented composers of music for the American theater. He arrived in America in 1935, and it took him only a few years until he was writing theater music for Broadway that was idiomatic and of the very highest quality. Therefore, if one finds fault with the American Kurt Weill, then one must find fault with American musical theater from the thirties and forties in general, because Weill was one of its best craftsmen.

Kurt Weill - Kurt Weill from Berlin to Broadway (1995) {2CD Set, Pearl GEMM CDS 9189}
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© 1995 Pearl | GEMM CDS 9189
Classical / Stage & Screen / Cabaret / Opera / Jazz

Did coming to America dull one of this century's most talented composers of music for the German theater? Nonsense. Kurt Weill simply turned into one of this century's most talented composers of music for the American theater. He arrived in America in 1935, and it took him only a few years until he was writing theater music for Broadway that was idiomatic and of the very highest quality. Therefore, if one finds fault with the American Kurt Weill, then one must find fault with American musical theater from the thirties and forties in general, because Weill was one of its best craftsmen.

Frida Leider II - Lebendige Vergangenheit (1994) {Preiser Records 89098 rec 1927-1942}
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© 1927-42, 1994 Preiser Records | 89098
Classical / Vocal / Opera / Historic Recordings

Frida Leider was the greatest Wagner soprano of her day, roughly the 1920s and '30s. Her fame has been eclipsed by such successors as Flagstad and Nilsson, but recordings reveal her to have most of their strengths along with more vocal warmth. Listen to her Immolation Scene from Wagner's Gotterdammerung, and you hear a truly extraordinary performance–a huge, shining voice used with consummate intelligence and verbal pointing, pinpoint intonation, and wild abandon kept in firm control. Her Walkure duet with Friedrich Schorr, "Nun zaume dein Ross," is another highlight among many on this disc, all of whose Wagner items were recorded in her prime. The songs, too, from 1941-42, with Michael Raucheisen accompanying, are beautifully done.

Frida Leider - Lebendige Vergangenheit (1989) {Preiser Records 89004 rec 1927-1931}
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© 1927-31, 1989 Preiser Records / Austro Mechana | 89004
Classical / Vocal / Opera / Historic Recordings

Music lovers who wish to have the great Berlin soprano Frida Leider represented in their record collections are unlikely to find a better memento than this. It comprises most of the best recordings she made between 1927 and 1931. Unfortunately her "Brunnhilde's Immolation" is not included. Technically what is here is probably the most satisfactory from her recorded legacy, and the Preiser restorations are well up to their usual standard.

Emma Eames - The Complete Victor Recordings, 1905-1911 (1993) {Romophone 81001-2}
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© 1905-11, 1993 Victor / Romophone | 81001-2
Classical / Vocal / Historical

Before I start to write the review of Emma Eames complete victor recordings, I would like to say few words about her biography. Emma Eames(1865-1952) a native from Bath, Maine, made her debut on March 13, 1889 at the Paris Opera as Juliette in Gounod's opera Romeo et Juliette to Jean de Reszke's Romeo and became an overnight sensation. It is amazing,because she had no previous Stage experience. She later wrote, 'It was curious experience to go to the Opera as nobody, and to find oneself the next day the talk of two continents'.

Rosa Ponselle - The 1939 Victor and 1954 'Villa Pace' Recordings (1996) {3CD Set Romophone 81022-2}
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© 1939, 1954, 1996 Victor / Romophone | 81022-2
Classical / Vocal / Historical

Legendary soprano Rosa Ponselle recalled these sessions taped by RCA in her Baltimore home as the only time she enjoyed making records. Fourteen years after her abrupt retirement from opera, her voluptuous instrument (ruby red in the '39 Victors and now tinged with purple) soars to better advantage in the amplitude of her spacious music room than within the cramped confines of the recording studio. Whether in Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy, Mozart, or Tosti songs, or chestnuts like "Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes," the vocalism is always informed by Ponselle's musical intelligence and sense of style. Romophone brings together all the material from these home sessions, including 75 minutes of music not issued by RCA, plus a promotional interview that reveals a warm, down-to-earth persona quite different from your typical diva stereotype. Ponselle fans need no encouragement to acquire this set.

Rosa Ponselle - On The Air, Volume 2, 1936-1937 {2CD Set Marston 52032-2 rel 1999}
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© 1936-37, 2000 Marston | 52032-2
Classical / Vocal / Historical

Rosa Ponselle (1897-1981) was arguably this century's greatest soprano. Artists such as Callas and Caruso acknowledged her vocal supremacy. Ponselle's voice had volume, beauty, emotion, sure intonation and remarkable flexibility. This two-CD set chronicles the second volume of her on the air recordings from 1936-1937. By Ponselle's own account, her broadcasts captured her true voice and she preferred these performances to her numerous commercial recordings. This set has been produced in association with the Rosa Ponselle Foundation and a portion of the sales will go to the Rosa Ponselle Scholarship Fund.

Feodor Chaliapin - The Complete Recordings (2018) {13CD Set Marston 51301-2}
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© 2018 Marston | 51301-2
Classical / Vocal / Opera / Folk / Bass / Russian Traditions / Historical

Feodor Chaliapin (1873-1938) (bass) was in the opinion of many the greatest singing actor of the 20th century. Like Enrico Caruso, the name Chaliapin continued to be a household word long after his death. A case in point is that the Sobranie tobacco company continued to market their “Chaliapin” cigarettes into the 1970s. Producing a Chaliapin set has long been a desire of Marston, yet due to the size of the compilation, the production costs, and the time involved, this project has been pushed to the back burner time and time again. With the financial assistance of some of our generous supporters, we have finally released a thirteen-CD set containing every known recording of Feodor Chaliapin numbering well into the two hundreds.

Rosa Ponselle - On The Air, Volume 1, 1934-1936 {2CD Set Marston 52012-2 rel 1999}
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© 1934-36, 1999 Marston | 52012-2
Classical / Vocal / Historical

Rosa Ponselle was arguably this century's greatest soprano. Artists such as Callas and Caruso acknowledged her vocal supremacy. Ponselle's voice had volume, beauty, emotion, sure intonation and remarkable flexibility. Before Rosa Ponselle (1897-1981), there had been no leading American singer who had not first made his or her mark abroad. This two-CD set marks the first volume of her on the air recordings. By Ponselle's own account, her broadcasts captured her true voice and she preferred these performances to her numerous commercial recordings. This set chronicles the Chesterfield broadcasts from 1934-1936 which demonstrate Ponselle at her best.

Richard Strauss - Selected Lieder Recordings 1901-1946 (2014) {3CD Set Marston Sesquicentennial Edition 53017-2}
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© 1901-46, 2014 Marston | 53017-2
Classical / Vocal / Early 20th Century / Historical

Richard Strauss’s (1864–1949) acceptance into the pantheon of great Lieder composers began in the early 1950s, perhaps marked by the enthusiastic reception of his Four Last Songs, premiered by Kirsten Flagstad eight months after Strauss’s death. It wasn’t long before these songs became widely performed, and by extension, his Lieder as a whole, began to gain greater acceptance as high art along with Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Wolf. This compilation concentrates on Strauss Lieder recordings from an earlier era that display the sort of vocal charm and straightforward approach to the music not usually heard in today’s style of Lieder singing. Many of these recordings are extremely important historic documents retaining their position as the definitive versions of Strauss Lieder. Some of the singers included here not only knew Strauss, but worked with him, and their recordings could have been heard and judged by him. This three CD-set contains forty songs in eighty-two performances by fifty-seven singers.

Frida Leider - hors (without) Wagner, 1921-1926 (1998) {Dante LYS 399}
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© 1921-26, 1998 Dante Productions | LYS 399
Classical / Vocal / Opera / Historical

Dramatic soprano Frida Leider was regarded by many colleagues, critics, and opera enthusiasts as the finest Wagnerian soprano during the interwar years. She was admired not only for a powerful voice of considerable beauty and flexibility, but also for her artistic integrity and histrionic gifts that compared favorably with those of the finest stage actresses. She had seen Eleanora Duse on stage and had been impressed with the legendary Italian actress' power and economy of gesture. Likewise, the musical comedy star Fritzi Massary proved an enduring icon for her poise and concentration.

Wagner - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - Wiener Philharmoniker, Wiener Staatsopernchor, Karl Böhm (1944) {4CD Set Preiser 90234 rel 1994}
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© 1944, 1994 Preiser Records | 90234 | Mono
Classical / Opera

This is the greatest operatic recording ever made, and one of the reasons is the astounding difficulty of doing even a good performance of this opera, which in all other recordings fails to sustain, throughout the work's 4+ hours, a continuity of tension and of a sense of forward-motion. Karl Bohm was unsurpassed at achieving such archetectonic unity; and he surpassed even himself in this recording, which was the second and last complete studio recording he made of this joyous masterwork, and much better than either his Bayreuth or Metropolitan Opera live recording of the complete opera. It's also better than his first studio recording of the work, which he made in Dresden in 1938.

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Text-CD 8 - Musik und Graphik 1959 (2007) {2CD Set Stockhausen-Verlag}
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© 2007 Stockhausen-Verlag | Stockhausen Text-CD 8
Classical / Avant-Garde / Experimental / 20th Century / Spoken Word

Since January 2007 the Stockhausen-Verlag is releasing Text-CDs of a new series: lectures which Stockhausen has given since 1952. The edition is limited to 300 copies per release. He wrote and spoke these lectures in German. Most of them are supplemented with musical examples.