;i1r,,*-==::xr - Chandos

Introduction
This collected edition afAksel Schiptz's recordings
means the fulfilment of a great wish of mine.
It touches me that the boards of Velux Fonden
af 1981, Augustinus Fonden and Cul Nielsen og
Anne Marie Cul-Nielsens Legat have sympathized
with the wish to perpetuate Aksel Schiotz's art.
Most of the recordings were issued on LPs,
but they are now obsolete, nor have those transfers
been as good as the originals. Listening now to the
fresh and clean transfer made from ltne early
pressings by Mr Andrew Walter, chief engineer of
the EMI Abbey Road Studios, one is reminded how
good the originals were. (They carry, most of the
time, "take l" on them, which is to the credit of
Aksel Schiotz as well as the engineers). It was
HMV in London who discovered Aksel Schiotz
and made him one of their artists, so it pleases me
that the CDs ue produced in collaboration with the
EMI Abbey Road Studios.
The series is complete up till late 1946 when
Aksel Schiotz barely suruived an operation which
left half his face lame. His struggle to recover and
to resume singing I, too, was involved in with
natural strong feelings. But there were two separate
periods, which must wisely be kept apart.
So what is presented now are the complete
recordings ofAksel Schiptz, the tenor Included re
unklown documenttry recordings fiom those
times, authorized for issue by me. I hope that the
CDs will come into the hands of those who will
love them bestl
Gerd Schi4tz
Gerd Schiotz:
A Choral Conductor and a Mentor.
Mogens Wcildike had lo:t no time in getting
somewhere. When Aksel flrst met him in 1929, he
was 32, M. A. in music, founder and conductor of
the Palestrina Choir, and Music Supervisor for the
Ministry of Education. He had become Thomas
Laub's successor in Holmens Church and
continued his restoration work for Lutheran church
muslc.
His first victory as an artist with the Palestrina
Choir war to u in lst prize in a competition in
Milan itself, the capital of madrigal singing. With
his energy, audacity, imagination, and force of
argument, he made the authorities of Copenhagen
agree to make a "song school" as the basis for a
Copenhagen Boys'Choir (will tum up in vols. 5
and 6 of this Schigtz series. Ed.) Then he got
himself the job as organist of Christiansborg Palace
Church, and also had the choir installed in the
same place.
But the evidence that showed him as an arlirt,
no less concentrated and clearheaded. were the
weekly concerts in the Palace Chapel, for which he
built up a wide-ranging repertoire with Palestrina,
Bach, Handel as the pillars. It was not just the
choristers who lemed old music, also a large
audience was educated and lemed to appreciate it.
Aksel was a tenor member of the Copenhagen
Boys' and Male Choir. It was important fbr his
later development that Woldike began to prepare
him tbr oratorio singing by giving him solos at
many concerts in the Palace Chapel.