"Here’s the REAL Rosenkavalier to buy!"

Those were the words Gary Hickling scrawled across a photocopy of the newest reissue of the great Lehmann Rosenkavalier. There is only one studio recording, (although abridged), this from 1933. It was issued first on 78rpms, and later reissued on LPs. When Gary and I visited Horst Wahl in Freiburg in 1989, he waxed ecstatic over a CD version by EMI that he had just heard over the radio. We awaited its release. It was not forthcoming. In the interim, Pearl released a two-disk version, but to Gary's ears, it was not as good as it could have been, because it was transferred from 78rpm records (with no noise reduction) and not from the original masters.

But now the real thing is here from EMI, and as it says in the fine print, "Transferred from 78s, digitally remastered and audio restoration carried out. . ." The EMI Reference recording is CDHB 64487. It's a two-disk pack and is filled out with Strauss lieder as interpreted by Elisabeth Schumann and Lotte Lehmann. The protagonists of the Strauss Rosenkavalier masterpiece are, of course, Lehmann, Maria Olszewska, Richard Mayr, and Elisabeth Schumann.

Frank Manhold in Munich sent Gary a photocopy of his CD booklet of the recording and asked, "Gibt es ihn auch schon in USA zu kaufen?" Gary assures me that it is definitely available in the U.S., though I haven't located it at the Wherehouse just yet. But I can hardly wait. —JS