WAM. Wunderlich.

It's Mozart's birthday. I'm on a bit of a Mozart high at present - doing a talk about him last night at the Wigmore Hall has left me a bit tearful and giddy and lovestruck, even though this is music I've known for more than four decades. It's so easy to take him for granted. We shouldn't. He's a miracle. And for those of you who were at the Wigmore last night - the more I think about it, the more I really believe that he was indeed the first Romantic.

Here's the great tenor aria from Die Zauberflöte, sung in 1965 with piano accompaniment by Fritz Wunderlich.

Friday historical: Fritz Wunderlich sings Tamino

Last night left me convinced (as if I needed convincing) that this is the most beautiful aria for tenor ever composed. What a good excuse to listen to Fritz Wunderlich singing it.

Friday Historical Favourite Things: the voice of Fritz Wunderlich

Much as I love today's great tenors, I'm not sure there was ever anyone else quite like Fritz Wunderlich. Here he is singing Beethoven's An die Ferne Geliebte: a work much quoted by Schumann as a thinly coded message to Clara...and in more recent times by many others for the same reason. This post is dedicated to anyone who's ever missed someone.