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Although thoroughly trained as a musician, Viennese tenor Julius Patzak had little, if any, technical schooling in the vocal arts. Yet, he became a favorite among audiences in his native city and second only to Richard Tauber as a master stylist in the Central European repertory. His voice, though not large, was plangent and somewhat hard-edged, capable of encompassing both lyric and dramatic roles. His forays into Viennese operetta were exemplary, full of character and knowing gestures, and sung with an immaculate sense of both elegance and forcefulness. His famous recording of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with contralto Kathleen Ferrier and Bruno Walter directing the Vienna Philharmonic has achieved legendary status.

Patzak was born into a family whose heads of household had been schoolteachers for three generations. After schooling in Vienna, he served his military obligation in Serbia. Upon his return to Vienna, he entered a career as a civil servant, working for the city's Youth Council. By this means, he was able to finance his pursuit of music at the University of Vienna, undertaken to realize his dream of becoming a conductor. His studies brought him in contact with composer Franz Schmidt, musicologist Guido Adler, and Adler's accomplished student, composer, and musicologist Egon Wellesz.

During an amateur concert presented by the Vienna Schubert Society, Patzak's singing attracted the attention of several individuals with contacts in the operatic world. The result was a contract with Bohemia's Reichenberg Theater and in April, 1926, he made his stage debut in the demanding role of Radames. The following season found him in Brno, after which he was engaged by Munich and spent the next 17 years at the Bayerische Staatsoper performing leading roles. Following the death of his first wife shortly after his move to Munich, Patzak married Maria Walter, granddaughter of the famous Bohemian Wagner tenor, Gustav Walter.

Once WWII ended, Patzak returned to Vienna where he joined the Staatsoper, remaining there until his retirement in 1960. He became an important artist at the Salzburg Festival, taking part in several world premieres, Gottfried von Einem's Danton's Tod and Frank Martin's Le Vin Herbé in particular.

Patzak confined himself to primarily to Germany and Austria, although he sang in London in 1938. He returned with the Vienna Staatsoper company in 1947 to perform Herod and Florestan and was engaged directly by the Royal Opera House management for 1948, repeating Florestan and adding his fervid Hoffmann to London's production of Offenbach's opera. Patzak's pre-war Tamino, alternating with Richard Tauber's, was regarded as "manly," if slightly "reedy." In the post-war era, Patzak's London Herod was found "wonderfully characterized" and his Florestan was hailed as a great realization.

Only one engagement brought Patzak to America. He performed at the Cincinnati May Festival in 1954 when Joseph Krips was its director.

With his voice grown larger, Patzak was, in his Vienna years, able to do greater justice to roles wanting both expressive authority and sheer vocal power. Patzak became perhaps the greatest of all interpreters of Hans Pfitzner's Palestrina. He was a superb Lohengrin, despite the absence of a truly sensuous sound. He was revered as the Evangelist in both of Bach's Passions and was the most celebrated of all singers who undertook the tenor part in Franz Schmidt's oratorio, Das Buch mit sieben Sielgen.

Patzak became a respected teacher at both Vienna's Music Academy and the Salzburg Mozarteum.

Regarded as a sensational Queen of the Night beginning in the late '40s, soprano Wilma Lipp won acclaim for that role in several major European venues. Studio recordings of Die Zauberflöte followed, with Karajan in 1950 and Böhm in 1955. By the 1960s, however, much of the focus and steadiness earlier evident had departed from her voice and adventures into the lyric repertory were less successful. In Vienna, Lipp studied with two famous singers: dramatic soprano Anna Bahr-Mildenburg (who achieved legendary status under Mahler's regime at the Vienna Staatsoper) and bass-baritone Alfred Jerger (a powerful singer/actor whose vocal production was decidedly unorthodox). Lipp made her debut in her native city as Rosina; two years later, at the tender age of 20, she was invited to join the Staatsoper at a time when the company was struggling to recover from wartime conditions. Her Queen of the Night in Vienna in 1948 was deemed spectacular. She performed it under Klemperer at La Scala and with Furtwängler at Salzburg with equal success. Covent Garden heard her for the first time in 1951 when her Gilda was found physically and vocally attractive but lightweight (she was one of five sopranos sharing the role); her Queen of the Night was regarded as more accomplished. Her Violetta in 1955 was less successful, lacking sufficient vocal substance for the third and fourth acts. Lipp sang Konstanze under Swiss conductor Paul Sacher at the 1957 Glyndebourne Festival, with Ernst Haefliger as Tamino. Lipp's American stage debut took place at San Francisco in 1962 when she undertook four roles, only one of which was comfortably within her fach. Unfortunately, her Sophie to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's elegant Marschallin was wobbly in the higher reaches of the role. Alice in Falstaff (she had sung Nannetta in earlier years) proved only curious and both Nedda and Micaëla were unidiomatic interpretations that lacked the right vocal coloration. Among Lipp's recordings, the 1950 Karajan Die Zauberflöte captures her art and voice at their freshest. A live performance from Salzburg in 1951 with Furtwängler leading a similar cast is also memorable; by the time Lipp recorded the Queen with Böhm in 1955, her performance was somewhat less secure. Lipp was awarded the title Kammersängerin in Vienna and taught for some years at the Salzburg Mozarteum.

A chameleon-like artist, mezzo-soprano Elisabeth Höngen covered nearly the entire spectrum of roles written for her voice register. From Lady Macbeth to Marcellina in Mozart's Figaro, from Carmen to an Orfeo of spiritual probity, she impersonated her every role with a conviction that seemed to change her very physiognomy. Possessed of neither a great voice nor outstanding personal beauty, she bewitched her collaborators on stage, the conductors who worked with her, and intensely loyal audiences in Austria, Germany, and elsewhere. Not a superstar, she was an ensemble player and valued colleague. Fortunately, she recorded often and many of her finest characterizations were preserved in studio and live recordings. Even without the vocal resplendence certain other artists brought to these roles, her interpretations remain inescapably compelling.

Höngen was born in Westphalia to parents who valued music as a part of family life. She took up the violin at age six and studied piano as well. Although she had an inconsequential voice, she developed a strong desire to become a singer. Despite lessons in Wupperthal, which strengthened her instrument somewhat, it was not until after she traveled to Berlin to study with Herman Weissenborn that she found her voice developing. Learning to absorb the essence of the music and to always resist forcing, she grew into the singer who could undertake both parts requiring agility and those wanting dramatic power. Showing her parents a contract for the Wupperthal Opera melted their opposition to her having a singing career, and in 1933 she made her stage debut as Irmentraut in Lortzing's Der Waffenschmied. Höngen's scope as an interpretive artist soon led to a wide range of roles. When a production of Wagner's Ring brought a near wholesale importation of artists from the Berlin Staatsoper, she alone of the Wupperthal company was assigned major roles, singing all the principal mezzo parts, Rheingold through Götterdämmerung.

From 1935 through 1940, Höngen was at Düsseldorf before responding to a call from Dresden where she continued adding to her repertory and collaborating with Germany's most celebrated artists. In 1943, Höngen accepted an invitation to become a company member at the Vienna Staatsoper and, after a successful debut as Ortrud, remained there until her retirement in 1971. In Vienna, she sang an extensive variety of roles, undertaking Verdi (Amneris, Azucena, Eboli and Ulrica as well as Lady Macbeth) in addition to Strauss, Wagner, and Mozart. A favorite role of hers was Dorabella in Così fan tutte where her gift for comedy was afforded an incomparable setting. Among her Strauss creations, the Nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten became as incisive an impersonation as her giddy Clairon in Capriccio. The two addled mothers in Salome and Elektra also became largely Höngen's property in Vienna and they both figured in her single season at the Metropolitan Opera in 1952. In addition to Herodias and Clitemnestre, Höngen sang her fervent Waltraute. Ten performances in all represented her entire Met career.

As disappointing as her short-lived American incursion was to her, the loyalty of the Vienna public was great comfort. She had been made a Kämmersängerin in 1947 and was equally celebrated at Salzburg (where her Orfeo was revered). During her long career, she performed with nearly every one of the great conductors (save for Toscanini). She participated with Furtwängler in his La Scala Ring in 1950 and was one of a handful of veteran artists invited to reopen the Bayreuth Festival in 1951.

A champion of modern music and an intellectual and philosophical conductor of a sort not much encountered any more, Jascha Horenstein moved to Vienna with his family at age six. He went on to study violin with Adolf Busch, Indian philosophy at the University of Vienna, and music at the Vienna School of Music. By 20 he had already decided to become a conductor and left Vienna for study in Berlin, where he conducted the Schubert Choir and became an assistant to Furtwängler. In 1924, he made his debut with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, conducting Mahler's then-little-known First Symphony. From 1925 to 1928, he conducted the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, and in 1929, as guest conductor, he led the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in the premiere of Alban Berg's Lyric Suite. As a young man he made the acquaintance of Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Richard Strauss, Busoni, and Janacek, and frequently programmed their music for the rest of his life.

On Furtwängler's recommendation, Horenstein was appointed director of the Düsseldorf Opera in 1929, and remained there until, as a Jew, he was forced to leave Nazi Germany. In the 1930s he lived in Paris and traveled extensively, conducting in Brussels, Vienna, and the USSR, visiting Scandinavia with the Ballets Russe, and touring Australia and New Zealand. He settled in the U.S. in 1942, became a U.S. citizen, conducted many of the leading orchestras of both North and South America and was one of four conductors, including Toscanini, to conduct the newly formed Palestine Symphony Orchestra. Though in great demand from the 1930s onwards, Horenstein did not actively seek a permanent conductorship; he appeared to prefer to work on his own terms.

After the Second World War, Horenstein returned to Europe and lived in Lausanne, Switzerland. Highlights of his renewed European career came in 1950, when he introduced Berg's opera Wozzeck in Paris, and in 1959, when his performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony for the BBC did much to stimulate a Mahler revival in Britain. After 1964, when he presented Busoni's Doktor Faust in New York, he gave many concerts in London with the London Symphony Orchestra and in Manchester with the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra. In his later years, he appeared frequently at London's Covent Garden.

From Furtwängler, Horenstein learned the importance in searching for the metaphysical rather than theoretical meaning of music, and that outlook coincided with his own interest in Eastern philosophy. As a conductor, Horenstein greatly admired Stokowski for his broad repertoire and the sense of occasion he brought to every performance. He was intolerant of routine performances, even from the greatest orchestras, and in rehearsal, he would run through large sections of a work to establish coherence and continuity before proceeding to finer details of interpretation. In the words of his assistant Lazar, "[t]he exceptional unity and cohesion that characterized his performances arose from the way he controlled rhythm, harmony, dynamics and tempo so that each individual moment might achieve the most vivid characterization, but the overall line and cumulative effect would not be lost."

In the early days of the LP record, Horenstein was widely known for his recordings of the Viennese masters, particularly Mahler and Bruckner, and derived inspiration from the interpretations of his idols, Nikisch, Walter, and Furtwängler. Before he was 30, he had recorded Mahler's Kindertotenlieder and Bruckner's Seventh Symphony. Shortly before his death, he said that "[o]ne of the greatest regrets in dying is that I shall never again be able to hear 'Das Lied von der Erde.'"

With a membership that is entirely amateur, the Vienna Singverein has developed a reputation as one of the finest choral ensembles in the world. Made up of about 200 singers, it has performed under the baton of some of today's leading conductors, including Gergiev, Ozawa, Boulez, Mehta, Muti, Barenboim, and Koopman. Such podium stalwarts from the past as Karajan and Furtwängler have not only conducted the Singverein but have held an enduring relationship with the ensemble, both in concert and on recordings. The Singverein's repertory is inclusive of a vast range, from J.S. Bach to Franz Schmidt and beyond, and while they have sung works by Verdi and Bizet and many composers outside the Austro-German sphere, they have shown a decided preference for music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner, and other German or Austrian composers. Although the Singverein have sung in operatic performances and recordings, Mozart and Wagner in particular, they have generally performed concert music. The Singverein has made hundreds of recordings over the years, many of them available on such major labels as Chandos, Decca, DG, EMI, Philips, and Sony.

The Vienna Singverein was founded in 1858 as a wing of the Society of Friends of Music. The roots of the ensemble actually date back to 1812, when the Society of Friends was originally formed. The Singverein's home in the concert world is the Vienna Musikverein. Johannes Brahms served as one of the Singverein's early artistic directors. Under his baton a partial premiere of his Requiem was presented by the ensemble in 1867. The Singverein developed a long history of important premieres, including those of the Bruckner Te Deum, Mahler Eighth Symphony, and the Franz Schmidt oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln.

In the 20th century the ensemble gained an international reputation and from mid-century made numerous concert tours throughout Europe, the U.S., Australia, Japan, and elsewhere. Among the more memorable concerts abroad was a 1985 performance of the Mozart Coronation Mass at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome under Herbert von Karajan, with Pope John Paul II present.

Karajan made over 70 recordings with the Singverein, many of them achieving broad critical acclaim. A number of these recordings have been made available, like the 2007 reissue of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony on DG (Grand Prix). Since 1991 Johannes Prinz has served as choir director of the Vienna Singverein.