This ‘cinematic’ title is meant to remind us of Charlie Chaplin’s motion picture masterpiece…

After World War I there was a major “slump” in German Lied production. However, over the past ten years, baritone Christian Immler has gone searching for early 20th century German artsong gems – with surprising results.

”Over a decade ago, Michael Haas and Geraldine Auerbach asked me to sing a recital at Wigmore Hall with the motto ‘Continental Britons’. I hardly knew any of the repertoire they were proposing, and thus became quite curious!

Thus began my prolonged ‘love affair’ with the works of émigré composers, igniting my still ongoing passion for (re)discovering, publishing and performing a great number of fantastic pieces that ‘went missing’ under dire historical circumstances. From an artistic point of view, a CD such as this one was only made possible thanks to Helmut Deutsch’s superb, fine touch and contagious enthusiasm.

The composers featured here all played in the premier creative league of their time. No longer should they only be remembered for the tragedies they suffered, but for all that they actually left to posterity: a fascinatingly multifaceted repertoire, often requiring truly ‘chameleonic’ transformations from the performer. To do justice to the marvellous cantilenas of a song by Gál, or to the poetic wit of Grosz, I find that it is best not to regard them in mere isolation, but as joint heirs of a past still very much alive. In the balancing act between nostalgia and modernism, Jewish composers play an essential role...“

(baritone Christian Immler in his foreword to the liner notes for this CD).