Search - Karl Blume, Gabriel, Walter Jurmann :: Richard Tauber Sings German Folksongs

How to present a simple folk song.

John Austin | Kangaroo Ground, Australia | 07/26/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Richard Tauber's recordings continue to be reissued. This CD includes a series of German folksongs he recorded with Mischa Spoliansky at the piano in 1926. Highly-prized by serious music lovers, who regretted the fact that Tauber was wasting his talents on the down market, popular repertoire of his time, they show how this extraordinary singer could find exactly the right manner to present a simple folk song.



Tauber finds exactly the right manner for the other items collected here also, although some of them do in truth fall into the down market category, and the orchestral accompaniments are sometimes unworthy. All are sung in German, some in dialect, and the famous Tauber "mezza voce" is freely used.



Collectors will find many ratities here and the transfers are as good as can be expected given the age of the originals, dating from 1926 to 1935. 74 minutes, however, gets to sound perhaps like too much of a good thing, especially as there is only a very slight pause between each track."

One of the best available CDs of Tauber recordings

Rob Pollock | 11/15/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It is good to have these 1926 to 1935 recordings of German folksongs in remarkably clear sound. The transfers were made in or before 1994. It would be interesting indeed to hear what even further improvements in sound quality might be achieved using current remastering technologies.



Bel Age are to be commended for wisely confining the chosen recordings to a particular song group, instead of grinding out another here and there selection of the type too often found where the compilers cram onto the CD a few examples each from the many musical genres in which Tauber excelled.



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