Advent Calendar 2009: December 9th

Advent Calendar 2009

December 9th

Dag Trygve Henriksen, 09.12.2009

Today a recording from Germany; Weinachten in der Fremde – Grosses tongemälde für Gesang, Rezitation, Orgel und Glocken. The actor Karl Zander (1881-1950) presents different Christmas songs which are sung in German by the tenor Richard Tauber (1891-1948).

Richard Tauber was one of the great tenors in between the World Wars. He was born in Linz by Donau and studied at the Conservatory in Frankfurt, planning to go for a conductor’s career, but subsequently altered his plans and studied song under Karl Beines in Freiburg. His debut was in the role of Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Stadttheater Chemnitz, Germany in 1913. Later on, he had engagements at the operas of Dresden, Berlin, Vienna and Salzburg.

As a Jew, he had to flee Germany in 1933 and Austria in 1938. He then settled in London, employed by the Covent Garden opera.

As an operetta singer he was of an astonishing caliber, and performed the role of Prinz Chou Song in Lehar’s operetta The Land of Smiles more than 700 times on stage.

Karl Zander was actor and administrative leader at Theater des Volkes in Berlin as well as directing film, among them the UFA short film Postlagernd XYZ in 1935.

This recording was made by Odeon in 1929. The catalogue numbers is O-4932a and O4932b (side 1 and 2). The matrix numbers is Be 8353 A (£) and Be 8354 A (£).