Classical Music & Opera Forums

bricon wrote:This set is an absolute bargain.

It's also out of stock.

At $56 that really is an incredible bargain, Bricon. How is the audio overall? I mean, can one hear the orchestra in full, or is it like a lot of those early (1950s and early 1960s) Bayreuth recordings where the voices are Italian-opera up-front-and-center, and the orchestra somewhat submerged in a murky mush?

Nice to see you here, Bricon.

ACD

David Zalman wrote:

bricon wrote:The Tristan und Isolde that I am currently playing has been a revelation to me – I have never really embraced this work (on recordings) before – my current copies are by; Furtwängler, HvK and Reiner (historical) – and none of them have had the impact on me that this Böhm set has; the first thing that hit me about this recording was the orchestral SOUND. It’s phenomenal!

Oh boy! Did you pick the wrong recording to go ape over! Better don your flame-retardant jammies in anticipation of ACD's reply.

Nah. No flame-retardant jammies required. Read on.

(BTW, I just read your post in that Wagner thread over at GMG. Good on you!)

ACD

bricon wrote:The Tristan und Isolde that I am currently playing has been a revelation to me – I have never really embraced this work (on recordings) before – my current copies are by; Furtwängler, HvK and Reiner (historical) – and none of them have had the impact on me that this Böhm set has; the first thing that hit me about this recording was the orchestral SOUND. It’s phenomenal!

Well, coming off those historical recordings, your response to the Böhm recording is perfectly understandable. And there's much to admire in that recording. If memory serves (I haven't listened to that recording in ages), the four principals are outstanding throughout. Nilsson is in splendid voice even though her singing is often slightly off-pitch sharp, and dramatically she's never done better in that role. Windgassen, always a supremely intelligent singing actor, may be no Heldentenor, but here he outdoes himself vocally, most particularly in Act III. Waechter makes a fine job of it vocally and dramatically, and, of course, Ludwig is Ludwig, which is to say there's none better. My argument is with Böhm alone.

To hear Wagner conducted by Böhm is to hear Wagner refracted through the prism of Mozart, and that's just plain wrong, wrong, wrong. As I've written on Sounds & Fury (and I quote):

Wagner's musico-dramatic and symphonic contrapuntal genius is almost always realized in the massing, rarely in details of inner line (Meistersinger is an exception), and Böhm's transparent and razor-edge-precise readings of Wagner wherein the revealing of inner line is prominent are therefore just plain wrong (i.e., un-Wagnerian). They're wrong because while precision and the revealing of inner line in the music of, say, Mozart or Beethoven is to reveal the very soul of the music, precision and the revealing of inner line in Wagner's music serves only to reveal how the sorcerer accomplished his magic. Not a good thing, not a good thing at all, as any self-respecting sorcerer will attest. It's not that Böhm doesn't understand Wagnerian rhetoric and the Wagnerian language. It's rather that they offend his sensibilities, and he willfully attempts to counter them wherever and whenever he can, including ignoring blatantly the markings in Wagner's scores. This is strikingly apparent in, for instance, his reading of the Tristan prelude that ignores what Wagner wrote as early as the first dozen or so measures, and virtually destroys the dramatic effect Wagner intended.

The most Wagnerian — which is to say the emotionally richest — reading of Tristan on record unhappily has cast as the Tristan a tenor who's just barely adequate to the role, and he has to do his thing opposite the great Nilsson herself. I'm of course speaking of the Solti Tristan for Decca, a recording thoroughly savaged by almost every classical music critic who reviewed it. But that recording is the only recording of that work to get the singer-orchestra balance right, and of course Solti is a Wagner conductor of the very first water, a genuine possessor of what I've termed the Wagner Gene, and he's in top Wagnerian form in that recording. If one can listen past the barely adequate Tristan (Fritz Uhl), that reading of Tristan is the most rewarding on record.

ACD

bricon wrote:I’ve now listened to T&I, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre (all conducted by Böhm) from the box-set and I can firmly state the I particularly enjoy Böhm’s approach to this repertoire. Whether Böhm possessed the “Wagner gene” or missed the most of massing is neither here nor there, I have connected with these works (on recordings) as I never have before – this set has been a revelation to me. I enjoy his quickish tempi and the lack of the “Wagnerian Wallow” approach that many conductors seem to bring to this repertoire.

Bloody philistine!

That notwithstanding, if it was revelatory to you, that's the important thing. T&I is the jewel in the crown of Wagnerian opera, and a jewel in the crown of mankind's greatest creations, and one can't go far wrong in finally grasping the work, no matter the route taken or the proximate precipitating cause.

bricon wrote:Speaking of “Wagnerian Wallow”; Levine’s Parsifal (1985) could certainly have done with some of Böhm’s directness – I thought that the Prelude would collapse under the weight of Levine’s reading....

Yes, I agree. Not one of Levine's finer moments.

I doubt very much whether Levine would approach that work the same way today. He was always a most meticulous Wagner conductor, but he never really "got" it back then. He has, however, developed into a fine Wagner conductor, and his readings today can, on occasion, rise almost to the level of one natively endowed for this very special work (i.e., one who possesses the "Wagner Gene").

Incidentally, for many (even most) knowledgeable Wagnerians, that Knappertsbusch '62 Parsifal is still the benchmark reading; one that's never been surpassed. As I've often remarked elsewhere, it's so perfect that I doubt whether Knappertsbusch himself could have repeated it even if his life had depended upon it.

ACD

kurnewal wrote:

David Zalman wrote:

ACD wrote:(BTW, I just read your post in that Wagner thread over at GMG. Good on you!)

That moronic thread that began with those moronic assertions by a moron named Operahaven which, I think, is an alias of that long-time troll of classical music forums, Eric Anderson, had over 170 -- 170! -– replies!! And what replies! I don't think I've ever witnessed so many Wagner-ignoramuses in one place at one time. The most annoying of that ignorant bunch were those two Wagner-haters, David Ross and Karl Henning. Of the two, that Ross character at least has spent some time with the operas. I'd like to bet Henning has never even once listened through an entire mature-period work. Your characterization of GMG as a "moron's sandbox" (or was it, "sandbox for morons"?) was right on the money.

Mr. Douglas has evidently got it belatedly through his thick head that if he calls people here idiots they won't return and enable his minuscule ad revenue, so he is lightening it up, replying with affectionate sobriquets like "bloody philistine" with a smiley. So warming to see that even a virtual Homo Erectus like Mr.Douglas can learn that being polite does not dilute one's message. He might actually have created a forum where he is not someday asked to leave. However, Mr. Dalman is making up for it by calling his old forum-mates from a prior BBS morons. Sort of like if you push a bulge in the wall of a rubber room in in one spot it pops back out in another. But it's still a rubber room. Don't bother flaming me, boys; I won't even read it; I only dropped by once briefly to wish you happy hallucinating.

Way t'go, David! Seems like one of the GMG morons managed to find his way over here after reading your comment there that I just started a new classical music and opera forum. Good thing you didn't supply a link, otherwise we might have had a GMG moron inundation to deal with here.

Oh well, no real harm done. Online forum morons do have a certain entertainment value, do they not, and most particularly when they misspell their own username.

LOL!

ACD

bricon wrote:I’ve been listening to the Böhm recording of T&I fairly intensely (an act at a time) over the past couple of weeks and I have been enjoying the
experience(s) immensely. Yesterday, I decided to re-visit one of my other recordings - Furtwängler, 1952, Philharmonia Orch, Flagstad, Suthaus – and my previous disinterest (in listening to recordings of T&I) has somehow vapourised, my reaction to the (Furtwängler) recording has changed TOTALLY. It appears that my Tristan und Isolde aversion (on recordings) has been overcome.

That's positively warming to the cockles of any Wagnerian's heart, Bricon. But you neglected to explain in what way your reaction to the Furtwängler recording has changed. Or were you talking only about your reaction to recordings of T&I generally?

bricon wrote:It will be interesting to see if I experience a similar epiphany when it comes to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; that’s the one Wagner work that I have never been able to appreciate; either on recordings or in the theatre.

Pssst! A word in your ear, if I may.

Just between us chickens, although I both recognize and appreciate the genius of the work, I've never been able to warm to it; not even in the superlative Bayreuth Knappertsbusch reading of 1952 (the Solti readings are, surprisingly, "square" and wooden even though technically excellent). Too damn diatonically sunny for my saturnine tastes.

ACD

Thanks for this, Daland.

Unhappily, I can't speak or read German except in the crudest, most elementary way. My parents wouldn't permit me to take the German language course offered by my high school, and made me take French instead. Lot of good that did. I can't speak or read that language either.

ACD