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Celebrating Schumann's 200th birthday in style
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This week (as I write it's 11th June, 2010) marks the 200th birthday of Robert Schumann, and what better way to celebrate the music of this great composer than with a recording of some of his finest work, recorded 101 years after it was written by two of the finest musicians of the twentieth century? I was rather surprised to find the LP which served as source material for this transfer tucked away in the large collection we recently acquired. Housed in a paper envelope within a protective plastic outer sleeve, it appears from the notes pencilled onto the paper ("Historical value - not hi-fi[!] - heavy rumble[?!]" was one comment [with my punctuation!], "Fully justifies issue" the other) that this was the copy which did the rounds at Philips when they were deciding whether or not to licence the recording for issue in Europe from Columbia. The red tick in the top right hand corner is presumably confirmation that a sufficient number of initials had been accumulated on the sleeve to justify going ahead. Although dating from the summer of 1941, you'd be hard-pushed to guess the vintage when listening to this remastering. The original, still available in a decent transfer elsewhere, had relatively low background noise, but a musical tone which was strident and rather thin, with a piano that was unrealistic and a voice that was rather too obviously "microphonic" of its era, if you know what I mean. When I first heard it, this LP sounded an ideal candidate for XR remastering. Carefully-tailored re-equalisation brought from it a truly believable piano and a glorious rendition of Lehmann's voice, the realism of the former being an excellent guide to the accuracy of reproduction of the latter. Careful application of frequency-targeted noise reduction produced an incredibly clean and clear background which is, for the most part, just about inaudible. It wasn't all plain sailing – there was a tendency to peak distortion in upper frequencies which has been largely tamed though is occasionally still a little evident; there's some pre- and post-echo during sections of the first few tracks still just about audible; I've done a lot of work on areas of swish and the clicks which inevitably arise from any archive disc-based recording, few though these were. However, I think the end results will surprise many people, just as they've surprised me – once again, it's hard to equate the actual vintage of the recording with the sound one hears when listening to it. A fitting tribute, therefore, both to the composer, Schumann, and to the artists, Lotte Lehmann and Bruno Walter.
Click here to view additional notes and links For a full biography of Schumann, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Schumann
Lotte Lehmann notes from Wikipedia
Charlotte (Lotte) Lehmann (February 27, 1888 – August 26, 1976) was a German soprano who was especially associated with German repertory. She gave memorable performances in the operas of Richard Strauss. The Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier was considered her greatest role. During her long career, Lehmann also made more than five hundred recordings.
Life Lehmann was born in Perleberg, Germany. After studying in Berlin with Mathilde Mallinger, she made her debut at the Hamburg Opera in 1910 as a page in Wagner's Lohengrin. In 1914, she sang for the first time at the Vienna State Opera, which she joined in 1916. There she sang the premieres of a number of operas by Richard Strauss, including Ariadne auf Naxos in 1916, Die Frau ohne Schatten in 1919, Intermezzo in 1924, and Arabella in 1933, as well as Vienna premieres of several operas by Puccini. Lehmann made her debut in London in 1914, and from 1924 to 1935 she performed regularly at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. She also appeared regularly at the Salzburg Festival from 1926 to 1937, performing with Arturo Toscanini, among other conductors. She also gave recitals there accompanied at the piano by the conductor Bruno Walter. In 1936, while in Salzburg, she discovered the Trapp Family Singers, later made famous in the musical The Sound of Music, and persuaded them to present their first public performance. In 1930, Lehmann made her American debut in Chicago as Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre. Lehmann's other Wagnerian roles included Eva in Die Meistersinger, Elsa in Lohengrin, and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser. She was also famous for her interpretation of Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio. Just before German annexed Austria in 1938, Lehmann emigrated to the United States, where she sang at the San Francisco Opera and the Metropolitan Opera until 1945. In addition to her operatic work, Lehmann was a renowned singer of lieder, giving frequent recitals throughout her career. Beginning with her first recital tour to Australia in 1937, she worked closely with the accompanist Paul Ulanowsky. He remained her primary accompanist for concerts and master classes until her retirement fourteen years later.[1] After her retirement from the recital stage in 1951, Lehmann taught master classes at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, which she helped found in 1947. She also gave master classes in Chicago, London, Vienna, and other cities. For her contribution to the recording industry, Lehmann has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1735 Vine St. However, her first name is misspelled there as "Lottie." She was a prolific authorr, publishing a book of poems Verse in Prosa in the early 1920s, a novel, Orplid, mein Land in 1937, which appeared in English as Eternal Flight in 1937, and a book of memoirs, Anfang und Aufstieg (1937), which later appeared as On Wings of Song in the U.K. in 1938 and as Midway in My Song in the U.S. in 1938. She also published volumes on the interpretation of song and the interpretation of opera roles. Later books included Five Operas and Richard Strauss, known as Singing with Richard Strauss in the U.K., a second book of poems in 1969, and Eighteen Song Cycles in 1971, consisting of material drawn largely from earlier works. Lehmann died in 1976 at the age of 88 in Santa Barbara, California. She is interred in the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna, Austria. The Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall on the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara was named in her honor. The Lotte Lehmann Foundation was established in 1995 to preserve and perpetuate Lotte Lehmann's legacy and at the same time to bring art song into the lives of as many people as possible. To this day, Lehmann's named is spelled wrong on the "Hollywood Blv, Walk of Fame" as "Lottie" instead of "Lotte."
Notes from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotte_Lehmann
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