The Austrian tenor Richard Tauber was born in Linz in 1891. He made his début at Chemnitz as Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. In 1913 he became a member of the Dresden State Opera before joining the Vienna State Opera in 1926. He was especially popular in operetta, and the composer Franz Lehár wrote many of his central roles specifically for him. He appeared in films, the most well known of which was Blossom Time (1934) and also composed, writing the operetta Old Chelsea (1942). Tauber settled in England in 1940 and died in London in 1948. His recordings of songs, made between 1919 and 1926, display the young Tauber’s voice at its richest and most flexible. This collection includes Tauber’s intense interpretation of songs from Schumann’s Dichterliebe as well as songs by Schubert, Schumann, Grieg, Richard Strauss and Wagner.