Ignaz Holzbauer:
Gunther von Schwarzburg - Schönster Sohn des Himmels! Holder Frieden!, O König! Deine Hand ist für mein Wort das sichere Pfand

Christoph Willibald Gluck:
L'innocenza Giustificata - Alte Eiche an schwindelnden Hängen

Johann Friedrich Reichardt:
Brenno - Santi numi del cielo – Stelle! Che dici? Cara! Che dir mi vuoi?

Giovanni Paisello:
La Molinara - Nel cor piu non mi sento

Vincenzo Righini - Alcide Al Bivio - Questo agevole a ameno - Dei clementi, amici dei, Alme belle, fugitte prudenti

Luigi Cherubini:
Der Wassertrager - O du meine Erretter, Mich trennen soll ich von dem Gatten, Gott! Täuscht mein Auge mich nicht, Dies Schweigen ist so fürchterlich

Alessandro Scarlatti:
La Molinara - Quel povero core

Georg Friedrich Handel:
Serse, HWV 40 - Ombra mai fu

Mozart was central to Fritz Wunderlich’s career, reflected not least by his famed role as Papageno in Mozart’s opera Die Zauberlflöte. Wunderlich and the conductor Emmerich Smola were also curious to discover arias by Mozart’s contemporaries and to make them available for a wider audience with their recordings. The result is breathtaking and proves once more that Wunderlich’s exceptional voice was also capable of ennobling music by unknown masters. Stepping outside that period are two bonus tracks of works by Alessandro Scarlatti and Georg Friedrich Handel, whose Ombra mai fu is possibly the only aria in music history addressed to a tree.

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Recordings: 11.04.1958, Kaiserslautern Musikstudio (Tr. 1-2); 28.01.1959, Kaiserslautern (Tr. 3-5, 12); 26.03.1957, Kaiserslautern, Alte Eintracht (Tr. 6); 29.01.1959, Kaiserslautern (Tr. 7); 06.11.1962, Stuttgart, Villa Berg (Tr. 8-11)