German

Recorded in Berlin, Vienna and other German-speaking centres, 1890s–1940s

The sides gathered here were cut between 1904 and 1922, every one of them classed as pre-1923. Orchestral playing fills much of the set—nineteen titles carry some form of the word orch—and the repertoire moves between marches, waltzes, operetta numbers, and songs with voice.

Three sides come from the Orchester vom Palais de Danse Berlin: Verschmähte Liebe, Ballgeflüster, and the Schatzwalzer from Zigeunerbaron. The Zonophon-Orchester Wien contributes two numbers from Miss Gibbs. Elsewhere the Edison-Orchester Berlin plays a Fantasie from Walküre, the Neues Tonkünstler Orchester the overture to Die Fledermaus, and Kapelle Sándor Józsi offers Frühlingsstimmen under the name Joh. Strauß.

Singers appear under the voice billings the labels once printed. Louise Kartousch, soprano, is heard with Imre Kalman directing in an excerpt from Ein Herbstmanöver; Fritzi Massary, soprano, in Die Csárdásfürstin; Karl Jörn, tenor, in Abschied, an old Netherlandish folk song; Ludwig Arno, tenor, in Der Volkszähler. Alma Gluck and Louise Homer share Humperdinck’s Hexenritt und Knusperwalzer from Hänsel und Gretel. On Schönau, mein liebes Schönau an unidentified man and an unidentified woman sing with the Zonophon-Orchester; the discs themselves give no names.

Peasant bands and military kapellen close the published set: Bauernkapelle “Die Alten” with Die Schöne Alfelderin, the Oberbayerische Bauernkapelle with S Almsträusli, the Erste Frankische Baurnkapelle, and marches from several Militär Kapellen. Against the vault rows tagged German, these sides form a compact early window, all of it clear of the 1923 line.