Customer Reviews

Very Best of Fritz Wunderlich

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Among the lyric tenors, Wunderlich had one of the most handsome voices and a strength not usually related to this type of tenors. One melancholically wonders how much his repertoire could have expanded, had he lived longer.

This new VERY BEST collection has arias of some of his trademark Mozart roles, songs and arias of less popular composers as well as some famous arias of the Italian repertoire. He sings them all with memorable style, unparalleled beauty of tone and - where needed - the right vigour. I only wish he'd escaped the tradition of those decades and recorded the Italian and French arias in their original language and not in German. Only "Ombra mai fu" is sung in Italian and it doesn't reveal any bad Italian accent. Listening for example to his lovely "Una furtiva lagrima" in German is unique for sure but I prefer the Italian version.

His life was brief but the quality of his singing eternal.

Fritz Wunderlich is still one of the Best. This CD is very good value for money, such a variety of songs, excellent tone quality.

As a long time admirer of Wunderlich I could not have been more delighted at the possibility this set gave to explore his development and marvel at his capacity to give the same care to his rendering of lighter works as he delivered in his Mozart and other more serious recordings. Almost as interesting was the excellent booklet accompanying the set with a miscellany of pictures and with contributions from his wife and others.
I cannot but wonder just how great his achievements would have been had he lived and of the distinct possibility that the reputations of the 'three tenors' might have had to be revalued. The tragedy of his death at so early a stage of his career I can feel as a personal loss.
W Kennedy, Melrose

A lovely , lovely set of discs. All well known tenor arias beautifully sung! A pleasure to listen to. A little unusual to hear Italian Russian and French arias sung in German but it does not change the quality of the voice. A very worthwhile purchase and exceptionally well priced.

I can't really add to other reviewers comments about Fritz the singer except to say that he will long be regarded as one of the best. I chose this album because it had particular tracks I wanted. It is, however, a double album which is filled up with a fair bit of Viennese Operetta. This music is not much to my taste and seems rather middle of the road to me. If you can find a single disc option that has all your favourites on it, I would go for that.

This is not a gripe about Wunderlich, one of the greatest IMHO. It is about the EMI folks, who obviously think that song texts are irrelevant. Well, how do you know if the singing does justice to the text? And if you think that these texts are easily available elsewhere, I would be most thankful if you would share with me Lehar's "Das Land des L"achelns" Kalman's "die Zirkusprinzessin" or Neuendorff's "Der Rattenf"anger".