Lieder Singer

When the plump, round-faced Czech Soprano Gertrude Pitzinger made her U. S. debut in Manhattan's Town Hall month before last, few U. S. concertgoers had ever heard of her. Last week, as Soprano Pitzinger finished her first U. S. tour, delighted critics went back a whole generation for their comparisons, acclaimed her as the greatest Lieder singer since Wuellner, Gulp and Gerhardt. Thirty-two-year-old Soprano Pitzinger learned Lieder as a girl from Bohemian peasants, studied more with Vienna's famed Lieder composer, Joseph Marx. Five years ago she braved a Berlin recital, became an overnight sensation. In London last May she was thrilled to sing in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony for Coronation visitors.

To Germans and Austrians the word Lied means simply song. To the rest of the world it means a particular kind of song, as peculiarly Austro-German as Knackwurst. In Italy, where a beautiful voice is regarded as a princely possession, songs are likely to have melodies constructed to show off beautiful voices. In France, where Art is for epicures, songs are likely to be skillful, titillating and sophisticated. But the Austro-German Lied is a miniature music-drama in which words, melody and accompaniment play equal parts. More important than the contour of its melody is the dramatic mood, or the metaphysical idea, that it expresses.

Lieder-singing takes a lot more doing than run-of-the-opera-house singing, and great Lieder singers are rare. Even world-famous opera stars come a cropper when they attempt Lieder; only a handful of them (Marcella Sembrich, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Lotte Lehmann) have ever satisfied the connoisseurs. Most great Lieder singers are specialists. Greatest of them in recent years have been: i) Dr. Ludwig Wuellner, who started life as a professor of philology in Muenster, toured the U. S. in 1908-10; 2) Julia Gulp, a Dutch contralto (originally a violinist as well as a singer), who visited the U. S. in 1913; and 3) Elena Gerhardt, a pupil of the late great Conductor Artur Nikisch, who came to the U. S. in 1912.

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