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Friedrich Schorr sings Richard Wagner Recorded 1927 - 1929 Download ID: 265042 (Duration 71'42") Restoration by HTS Studio for Hänssler Classic COMES WITH ENGLISH NOTES & COVERS

Was duftet doch der Flieder Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

The passage beginning »Habt acht! Uns dräuen äble Streich'« in Hans Sachs's closing address ominously anticipates the fear the Nazis propagandistically nurtured that the »pure German« culture was being corrupted by foreign influences. Can that passage be separated from the singers who during the »Third Reich« spat out the words with all the vehemence of Joseph Goebbels?

There was in fact one singer whose recordings of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg greatly helped to »denazify« the opera: Friedrich Schorr. Before being »verboten« by the Nazis, Schorr was the leading heroic baritone in Germany. His studio and live recordings reveal him to have been the perfect embodiment of a Wagner singer, highly sensitive and extremely subtle in his interpretations.

Schorr's Hans Sachs was at the same time a shoemaker and a poet, a master craftsman and a singer, a realist and a daydreamer; a man rooted in tradition but open to innovation, straightforward but artful, cheerful but melancholy. Schorr was able to bring out all those facets in his singing. He was a heroic baritone with the lyricism of a lieder singer, singing Sachs's monologues and Wotan's farewell with so much legato that they might have been Verdi's cantilenas. This distinguished him not only from many of his contemporaries and successors, but also from his predecessors, since the fatally harsh »sprechgesang« style was not created in the »Third Reich« but during the era of Wagner's widow Cosima; indeed, George Bernard Shaw referred to it as the »Bayreuth bark«.

Like Frida Leider, Lotte Lehmann, Lauritz Melchior, Hanns Herman Nissen and many others of his generation, Schorr steered away from that »style« as far as possible. »I am indeed convinced that Wagner must be interpreted in melodic terms,« he said in an interview, »and when I'm singing Wagner, I try to connect phrases just as I would in Verdi ... Wagner must not be made responsible for that wrong 'sprechgesang'.«

The fact that Schorr's voice had a movingly melancholy tone the likes of which are extremely seldom found in heroic baritones was of additional benefit to his role interpretations. Seldom has Wotan's farewell been so movingly presented.

In spite of significant competition from Hanns Herman Nissen, Paul Schöffler, Ferdinand Frantz and others, Schorr's portrait of Sachs remains the most colourful ever recorded. That is exemplified in every respect by the monologue beginning »Wahn! Wahn!«, in which Sachs muses over the folly of mankind. Particularly in the lyrical passages, like that in which he recalls the lilac and Midsummer Night, Schorr brings out poetry and beauty from the music that are painfully lacking in later recordings...

Excerpted from enclosed sleevenotes, Thomas Voigt © 2004

Track Listing:

1. Was duftet doch der Flieder - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
2. Gut'n Abend, Meister - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
3. Jerum! Jerum! - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
4. Wahn! Wahn! Überall Wahn - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
5. Abendlich glühend in himmlischer Glut - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
6. Aha! Da streicht die Lene Schon um's Haus - Selig wie die Sonne (Quintett) - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
7. Euch macht ihr's leicht - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
8. Verachtet mir die Meister nicht - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
9. Die Frist ist um - Der fliegende Holländer
10. Wotans Abschied und Feuerzauber - Die Walküre

Please note: This is not a Pristine Audio historic restoration.

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