Erich Kunz

I well remember when I read of Erich Kunz' death. I was working in radio, and due to go live shortly. It was almost more than I could do, as his voice, on the old Vanguard LPs, had been one of the joys of my life for decades. Sadly, I never had the pleasure of seeing him perform (most notably, we are told as Papageno). Mercifully, in all the transformations -- one is tempted to say "deformations" -- of the old Vanguard enterprise, there are CDs of his singing the gool old German university songs. It is not merely a tribute to his vocal art -- and that of the Male Chorus of the Vienna State Opera -- but also what I must call their strength of spirit that these perfomances have a warmth and persuasiveness which overcome the circumstances of their recording in a still-troubled post-War Vienna, and the lingering bad taste from decades of grim association of some of the old student movement with nationalism, anti-Semitism, and ultimately the Nazi movement. This is truly one of those CDs I'd grab on the way out of aburning building. Gaudeamus igitur!… (meer)