Whether there is a Higher Being, or not, may or may not be an open question. In any case, there are situations where, in the absence of a reasonable explanation, one cannot avoid to call on such Higher Being. The existence of a Mozart or a Schubert, who have created music, in a deeply touching way, belongs to those situations, leaving us ordinary mortals speechless, not a least because Mozart has written down his music ready for print in an enormous quantity. This also includes performers such as Fritz Wunderlich, who is regarded by many as the lyrical tenor of the twentieth century. By the way, what does link Mozart, Schubert and Wunderlich, apart from your extraordinary abilities, is that the Higher Being has left them little time to exercise their art. Thus, Mozart became 35, Schubert only 31 and Wunderlich 36 years old.

We as an astonishing audience like to see these extraordinary artists have started their short career as Wunderkinder, if possible in the crab age. For Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose musical prematureness was finely exploited by his father, this is especially true. For Schubert less. And not for Fritz Wunderlich. Rather, his "wondrous" childhood consisted in assisting to work for the living of the family by being active in the regional dance music scene. There was, however, no mention of the prematurely gifted singer. And it did not look like this when he took up the horn and later the vocal studies at the Freiburg Musikhochschule. At some point, however, the Higher Being must have come to his senses, since the twenty-five-year-old tenor, who was freshly engaged to the Wurttemberg State Opera, had become a star overnight stepping in as Pamino with a star-like career abruptly coming to an end after eleven years through accidental death.

What one likes to overlook: singing stars are not born overnight, and they do not shine so easily for a long time - certainly not stars of the caliber of a Fritz Wunderlich. Unceasing hard work on the vocal material, merciless self-criticism, the correct choice of the vocal teacher, and the careful management of the career are essential prerequisites for the star to rise and to shine long. Only the will to merciless self-criticism has given us the gifted Lieder Singer Fritz Wunderlich. When the celebrated opera star suffered shipwrecking in front of Munich’s audience with his badly opera-style first Lieder recital, he took this deeply frustrated as an occasion to ask the vocal pedagogue Hubert Giesen for professional advice and to ensure in months of hard work with him - his future piano accompanist - that in addition to the unique opera singer, there was a no less unique Lieder singer Fritz Wunderlich. This, certainly, has wowed the audience of the tenor, but not the Higher Being, who did not hesitate to withdraw the tenor from earthly life just three months following to the recording of the Lieder cycle "Die schöne Müllerin".

What remains for us earth inhabitants blessing in disguise of Fritz Wunderlich are numerous recordings of his incomparable singing art, in addition to film and video material, on which also his acting talent is to be admired, such as in Rossini's Barber of Seville, a life-recording made in the Munich Prinzregententheater from the year 1959 available on DVD, on which, together with his friend, the baritone Hermann Prey, he reached vocal as well as acting peak form. And then, of course, there is also the recording of the “Schöne Müllerin” with Hubert Giesen, which is now available as a download, which has been produced almost free of cuts, sounding as fresh as on the first day of production, and which even in the light of many recordings of competent tenors occurred in the meantime is unrivaled as the last testimony of the Lieder singing art of Fritz Wunderlich.

Fritz Wunderlich, Tenor
Hubert Giesen, Klavier

Digitally remastered

Please Note: We offer this album in its native sampling rate of 48 kHz, 24-bit. The provided 96 kHz version was up-sampled and offers no audible value!