Richard Tauber conducts the LPO (as the ‘Grand Symphony Orchestra’) in his own ‘Sunshine Suite,’ recorded on 5 and 19 July 1940.
The movements are:
00:00 1st movement
07:54 2nd movement
11:37 3rd movement
15:04 4th movement
From Wikipedia: Richard Tauber (16 May 1891 – 8 January 1948) was an Austrian tenor and film actor.
Richard Tauber was born in Linz, Austria…The child was given the name Richard Denemy…After he was adopted by his father in 1913, his legal name became Richard Denemy-Tauber…
In 1897–98 he was sent to school in Linz, and then his father took over his upbringing…His father, who was born Jewish, but had converted to Roman Catholicism, hoped that young Tauber would become a priest…His father [ultimately] entered him at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt to study piano, composition and conducting. He made rapid progress but he…hoped to become a singer.
After an intense period of vocal training under Carl Beines, he made his public debut at a concert at Freiburg on 17 May 1912…[T]he Dresden Opera…had already offered Tauber a five-year contract, commencing on 1 August… During his years in Dresden, Tauber acquired his reputation as a remarkably quick student… People started to call him ‘the SOS Tenor.’ He saved the German premiere of Puccini’s Turandot in 1926 at the Staatsoper Dresden, learning the role of Calaf in three days when tenor Curt Taucher fell ill…
In 1922, Tauber signed a five-year contract with the Vienna State Opera and appearances with the Berlin State Opera followed; for many years he appeared with both companies…He sang the tenor role in many operas…It was in June 1919 that he made the first of over seven hundred gramophone records… Tauber had a lyrical, flexible tenor voice, and he sang with a warm, elegant legato. His excellent breath control gave him a wonderful head voice and messa di voce with a superb pianissimo. He was elegant in appearance too – although he had a slight squint in his right eye; he disguised it by wearing a monocle which, when accompanied by a top hat, added to the elegant effect.
Tauber first performed in an operetta by Franz Lehár at the Volksbühne in Berlin in 1920…In the future, Lehár composed a number of operettas with roles written specifically for Richard Tauber… Tauber appeared in a number of films, both in Germany and later in England…
When in Vienna, Tauber also conducted at the Theater an der Wien, and it was here in 1924 that he met the soprano Carlotta Vanconti who soon divorced her Italian husband and married Tauber on 18 March 1926. They separated in 1928 and divorced later the same year in Berlin. The divorce was recognised, however, only in Germany. In 1929 he met Mary Losseff at Rudolf Nelson’s review in Berlin. They lived together for about five years… In 1931, Tauber made his London debut in operetta, and London appearances became a regular event; he also toured the United States in this year. In 1933…he decided to leave Germany for his native Austria, where he continued to sing at the Vienna State Opera right up to the Anschluss in March 1938. In the mid-1930s, he made several musical films in England, and at the premiere of her film Mimi in April 1935, he met the English actress Diana Napier (1905–1982); they were married on 20 June 1936, only after protracted legal proceedings to secure an Austrian divorce from Vanconti…
In 1938, he made his London operatic debut in Die Zauberflöte under Sir Thomas Beecham…He was touring South Africa when World War II broke out, and returned to Switzerland until receiving the papers allowing him to enter the UK in March 1940…[H]e remained in the UK for the entire war. There was little opera staged in wartime Britain so he made a living by singing, conducting and making gramophone records and radio broadcasts. He even composed English operettas… By now he was so crippled by arthritis that he could no longer move into and away from the microphone for softer and louder notes. A small trolley was built on rubber wheels so the engineers could silently roll him back and forth while recording…
In April 1947, Tauber…sought medical attention for a persistent cough. He was eventually diagnosed with lung cancer: one lung was already useless and the other nearly so…
On 27 September 1947 he sang the role of Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, not a large part but with two difficult arias that demand good breath control to bring off well. Those in the audience say that he sang wonderfully and to loud applause…
Three days after his last performance, Tauber entered Guy’s Hospital on October 1, 1947, to have his left lung removed to treat the cancer. Nonetheless, he died of complications on January 8, 1948, in the London Clinic, Devonshire Place. His Requiem Mass was at St. James’ Church, Spanish Place. He was interred in Brompton Cemetery in London.
I made this transfer from English pressings of Parlophone Odeon SW 8095/7.
source
Richard Tauber…..indeed, he was it, allround educated musician……🎶🎶🎶🎵🎶🎶🎵🎼🔔
Another incredible curiosity! Many thanks!
Can't thank you enough for this. It was never issued on LP or CD, and the only transfers previously to appear on YT were not at all good. Though the labels say, for contractual reasons, 'Grand Symphony Orchestra', this is actually the LPO. They gave the first performance under the composer at the Queens Hall in London on 2 August 1940, having already recorded the work at Abbey Road on 5th July, with one side re-made on 19th July. The work was frequently played in the 50+ full Symphony concerts Tauber and the LPO gave throughout the UK over the next four years. Over the the years I owned 3 copies of the 78s – one I sold, and one is now in Vienna, part of my donation to the Austrian National Library. The LPO from 1941 included the trumpeter, Malcolm Arnold, later a famous composer, who said of Tauber: "An absolutely magnificent conductor, and not a bad composer, either".
Thank you for letting me listen to great music. ❤️
Much of the Wikipedia entry you quote was actually written by me! Listening to this again after some years, I am reminded of the film scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Tauber's friend, in several of whose operas Tauber scored a great success.