• Leonie Rysanek, Helmut Melchert, Gürzenich Chor, Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester, Günter Wand

ADD/m, 1952

There are increasing signs that the composer Walter Braunfels is being rediscovered. At the latest since Christoph Schlingensief has staged his "Heilige Johanna" for the Deutsche Opera in Berlin, even "non-initiates" have become interested in his work for his work. In the German musical life of the 1920s and 1930s, Walter Braunfels was a central figure figure in German musical life in the 1920s and 1930s, and his successes were on a par with those of his Richard Strauss. Whether Fritz Busch, Hans Hans Knappertsbusch, Otto Klemperer or Bruno Walter - they all all scrambled to perform his works. Also as Director of the Cologne Academy of Music, he was held in the highest Esteem

Braunfels shared the fate of a large part of the German cultural elite Cultural elite. As a "half-Jew," he was one of the composers ostracized by the By the Nazis and was forced to take cover to go into hiding. After the end of the war, he was almost forgotten. Günter Wand was one of his great admirers and after 1945 he was particularly committed to bringing Braunf's works to the Braunfels' works to German audiences after the war. In one of the eight Braunfels concerts that Wand gave with the with the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra between 1946 and 1962 and 1962, he performed the "Te Deum," the intense and passionate confession of faith and passionate confession of faith by the composer who converted to converted to Catholicism. For Wilhelm Furtwängler this was of all his works "the most beautiful and open in terms of feeling the most beautiful and most open"

The present recording was made in 1952 as a production of the Nordwestdeutscher In the series "Special Concerts" on the occasion of the composer's of the composer's 70th birthday. It was played by the Cologne Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra under Günter Wand. The soloists were Leonie Rysanek and Helmut Melchert.