Those cards and letters

We really do enjoy the letters and calls that have come back to us from newsletter mailings. There is such enthusiasm out there for Lehmann, and we are delighted to hear from you. We'd like to quote from a few letters:

• Dr. Herman Schornstein, "I'd heard her several times as a teenager and after becoming established as a physician I wrote asking if perhaps she had a painting or watercolor for sale. I had seen the exhibition of Winterreise watercolors at the Pasadena Art Museum prior to hearing her sing the cycle in the Pasadena Playhouse. That began an extraordinary relationship.
• "My wife and I traveled with LL from Santa Barbara to NYC for the closing of the Met...My wife later told me the woman who sat next to her asked if THAT was Lotte Lehmann. My wife said she didn't know! The woman said she was pretty sure she was...and asked, 'Didn't you ever hear her?' My wife replied, 'No.' The woman indicated it was a pity as she was so extraordinary, explaining, 'Every time she'd open her mouth you'd, you'd (searching for a word) just want to cry.'
• "After lunch they showed a Leslie Caron film which Lehmann casually watched during the inevitable conversational lulls (my awe was vast)...During a love scene between Caron and Mel Ferrer, she suddenly turned to me and asked,'Dr. Schornstein, can you imagine anything more disgusting than kissing Lauritz Melchior?' (The thought had never encered my mind; it has occasionally intruded itself since.) She went on to explain that happily in opera one could fake kisses, but not on the scteen."
• Professor Dr. B. von Barsewisch, Munich: "I gratefully received the first letter of the Lotte Lehmann League. I am a grandson of Baron Konrad zu Putlitz who played an important role in Mme. Lehmann's life...The family had always been in touch with Mme. Lehmann, so I heard of her first when she sent Care-parcels to us when we were refugees in West Germany. I met Lotte (as she asked me to call her) several times in Europe and in her home in Santa Barbara. I have no early material and also what Mme. Lehmann might have written to the Putlitz family before 1945 is lost. I have only late letters from her. But in case you have any questions about the circumstances of the family zu Putlirz I am an expert on that."
• We received a letter from EMI's Keith Hardwick, London. Though it was his original intention to use only metal masters for the EMI CD of Lehmann arias, he wrote that several metal parts "had seriously deteriorated". Vinyl pressings made directly from original metal masters were used for the Fidelio, Freischütz, Lohengrin, Tristan (the start of XXB 8497 Du bisr der Lenz... is unusable), Wunder der Heliane, and Eva arias."
• Ed Wilkonson, San Francisco, wrote with a detailed nine page list of Mme. Lehmann's radio broadcasts from around the world. Little known programs such as "American Preferred," "Standard Hour" and the "Nash Speedshow" were mixed with the famous sources listed~below.

Here are just a few samples of some of the most important broadcasts not heretofore listed in the available Lehmann discographies:

Covent Garden:

• Fidelio, 30 Apr.'34;
• Die Walküre, 2 May 34;
• Die Meistersinger, 1 Jun. ,34;
• Lohengrin;

all conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham;

New York Philharmonic:

• Alceste: Divinitées du Styx, Oberon: Ozean, du Ungeheuer, 29 Jan. 33;
• Die Walküre, Act 1, 30 Dec.34;

both conducted by Bruno Walter.

If any readers know of acetates or other sources for these broadcasts, or others not listed in the discography, please contact me. The acoustic life of acetates has almost expired, and if we don't rescue these things now, they will be lost fotever. Anyone interested in a copy of Mr. Wilconson's list may also write me, Gary Hickling.

[Web users note: The complete list is avialable here on the Lehmann WebSite under "Community", then "Lost Legacy".

• One of Mme. Lehmann's biographers, Dr. Berndt Wessling, has kindly sent copies of his Lehmann correspondence for the Archives at UCSB.
• We received a great number of tape recordings of Lehmann interviews. Our contact in Germany sent items from the North German Radio, RIAS Berlin, and the Bavarian Radio.
• John Kovach sent a snippet of an interview done in Australia when Mme. Lehmann was on tour there.
• Darrel Strong sent detailed discographical data from RCA's files in New York. The five pages include information on each original master disposition and present status of each preserved "take".
• Jerry Minkoff was recently in London and while there spent rime in the BBC archives researching Lehmann broadcasts. He sent data from the files that will enable the Lehmann Archives to request specific items not already represented. Valuable research!
• LarryFriedman, a French language teacher, writes: "I respond very positively to the ptoducts of French culture and am terribly picky about how French music should be performed...So imagine my surprise when I listened to Lehmann's mélodies on the RCA CD. If the voice weren'r so immediately recognizable, I would have surely thought that it was a product 'de la tradition francaise'. It's a wonderful disc..." (See the article on the RCA CD in this newsletter.)
• Dr. Schornstein sent an acetate for preservation. William Moran writes: "It is an acetate copy of some work acetates...There is applause at the end..The originals from which this copy was made were in sad shape...Titles are Im Frühling, An eine Quelle, Auflösung (Schubert) and Frühlingslied (Brahms)." Moran will send tape copies of these rarities to UCSB.
• In a letter from Henry Hall in Australia he mentions "a man in N.Y. who has on his tape list the Wesendoncklieder, Salzburg 26/8/1934, also a Broadcast Liederabend 20/8/1935 (LL and Bruno Waker--Mozart, Schumann, Duparc, Mussorgski, Berlioz, & Brahms); and two recitals with Bruno Walter: 1/ 8/l937 and 20/8/l937".

If anyone can tell me on whose list these selections appear I would be most grateful. These selections don't appear in my discography, that of Floris Juynboll or in any information at the Lehmann Archives -GH