Be Still My Heart presents works by two little-known Viennese composers. Robert Gund (1865-1927), born in Switzerland, a pianist, teacher and composer who was highly regarded in Vienna but whose works have since been forgotten, and his younger colleague Wilhelm Grosz (1894-1939), who was writing highly successful songs for the cinema in Berlin at the time of Gund’s death.

Grosz then emigrated to the United States in 1939, when his music became influenced by both post-Romanticism and jazz. This program, conceived and performed here by Christian Immler and Helmut Deutsch, both masters of the German Lied, includes many songs that are recorded for the first time. Grosz’s New York songs have inspired many cover versions by such 20th-century musical greats as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and the Beatles.

Christian Immler, Bass Baritone
Helmut Deutsch, Piano