Fritz Wunderlich’s exceptional voice is heard here singing festive arias.

There is no comparable compilation available on the market.

These are recordings from 1955–1959.

Fritz Wunderlich’s early recording of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, from a performance in the Stuttgart Markuskirche on 18th December 1955, presents the singer of the century at the beginning of his career. One rarely hears Bach sung with such a sensual voice, and rarely is one so enraptured by a voice like that of Fritz Wunderlich.

This also the case with the recording of Handel’s Messiah, conducted by Heinz Mende, from a concert in the Stuttgart Liederhalle on 20th March 1959. By this time, Wunderlich already had a string of successes behind him and was well on his way to achieving worldwide fame.

The other performances in this collection took place between those two recordings: they are studio recordings, all of them rarities from Wunderlich’s repertoire, which exist only in this early series of Stuttgart radio productions.

This recording is the first instalment of a 10-CD Wunderlich series, each with a different focus:

• Arias by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert
• 19th-century arias
• Early Music
• Hits of the 1950s
• Operetta Arias
• Arias by Mozart’s contemporaries
• Sacred Arias
• 20th-century Arias
• Lieder (Schubert, Brahms, Wolf, Strauss)