Moving to the later 1920s, we find an extraordinary group of Lohengrin-ready tenors on  the scene, and along with Lehmann several fine Elsas, too. But Slezak is still around! And whereas the “In fernem Land” he recorded back in the ’00s sounds slightly rushed and perfunctory, some of the phrases not completely finished off, he is now able to redo the piece, electrically recorded (very well) and accompanied by an excellent Berlin pickup orchestra under Manfred Gurlitt. And although the voice is naturally not as fresh as it had been a quarter-century earlier, its steeliness at forte reinforced by the close miking, this is a great interpretation, one that brings us the ear-portion of a formidable singing-actor’s work. Again he takes breath where others sing through, and whether or not he employs some of these pauses to gird for well-supported and balanced statements, he uses every one as a distinguished orator might, broadening here and quickening there to underline a rhetorical point or set something off in relief. It’s the most convincing layout of the Narrative I have heard, and the battle-tested instrument responds impressively to both the softer phrases (“alljährlich naht von Himmel/eine Taube;” “so muss ich von euch ziehn,” etc.) and the heroic/declamatory ones (e.g., “Es heisst/der Gral;” “sein Ritter ich.“^(I)

1926 marked the debut (at Frankfurt, as Florestan) of Franz Völker, who was to become pre-eminent as Lohengrin on German-language stages for the next two decades. He sang all but the heaviest of the Wagner roles (wonderful fragments of Siegmund live from Vienna in ’36, with the heart-wrenching Lehmann as Sieglinde), along with the corresponding French and Italian parts, and for anyone in search of operetta tenorizing with all the style and much of the charm of a Tauber, Wittrisch (Lohengrin, Bayreuth ’37—and his 1933 recording of the Narrative might surprise you)) or, later, Wunderlich or Ilosfalvy, but with a little more heft, he’s very recommendable. In 1927-28, Völker recorded the two main solo passages from the Bridal Chamber Scene, plus the Narrative and Farewell. These are no-nonsense studio interpretations, not especially individual or insightful, but sung with such security and health of tone, and such an obvious fit of voice for the lie of the music, as to be outstanding on those counts alone. In 1936, Telefunken recorded a series of sides devoted to the Bayreuth Festival of that year. Included were ten devoted to Lohengrin, with Völker opposite Maria Müller as the protagonist pair, and with the Festival’s orchestra and chorus under Heinz Tietjen. These 78-rpm sides were published as individual releases, but Telefunken gathered them on LP in a series called “Aus Bayreuths Vergangenheit” in the early ’60s. The Lohengrin extracts made for peculiar sequencing. On HT 1, following the Act 1 Königsgebet ensemble, we could follow Act 3 from the Prelude through the Bridal Chorus, and on into the Bridal Chamber Scene up to “Höchstes Vertraun,” skipping thence to the Grail Narrative, which opened the cut I mentioned earlier. (I believe this was the only inscription of this music up until the complete RCA version of 1965, with the BSO under Leinsdorf. In 1936, Lohengrin had been restored to the Bayreuth repertory for the first time since 1908.) Then, when HT 11 came along, we could go back to Act 2 for the Procession to the Minster, pick up the Bridal Chamber Scene with the “Höchstes Vertraun” (which also opened the then-frequent internal cut beginning at “Dein Liebe muss mir hoch entgelten“), but then stopped short of the rest of the scene), and finally jump to the Farewell. So one could string it all together only by jumping back and forth, and one had to put up with concert endings. But a good sequence was there for the managing.