I have many Wagner recordings, but am a bit light on the great mono historical recordings.
Which are the ones I need to get? Your favorites?
thanks
Which are the ones I need to get? Your favorites?
thanks
If you want the Wesendonck Lieder, there's a recording with Eileen Farrell and Leonard Bernstein which, back in the LP days, was coupled with a fabulous Immolation Scene. It was one of my first Wagner records, and I have to say I've heard a lot of recordings of the songs since then but none better. Just listen to the beauty and expressiveness of this:
The rest are on YT as well. What a pity that Farrell never sang Isolde.
Other singers who have made splendid recordings of the songs are Flagstad, Ludwig, Baker and Norman. They all have the sort of "between soprano and mezzo" voices that Wagner seemed to write his greatest music for.
They all sound a bit different depending on who sings them, definitely can hear the shimmering music cords later used in Tristan opera.........Are you aware that Kaufmann has recorded the Wesendonck Lieder. Very different with a male voice but very good, nonetheless.
Probably both... But my guess is that directors tended to give an awesomely intelligent artist like Hotter fairly free reign to present his own perspectives on the characters he played. No doubt his active imagination enjoyed rethinking his roles, trying different things, and responding to the production and colleagues who surrounded him at the moment. I don't know how he got on with Wieland Wagner, but the grandson was evidently an inspired director of singers (just like grandpa), and may have contributed to Hotter's conception of Wotan, as he did to Nilsson's Isolde and the portrayals of many other singers.While in Tidal streaming I see they have the latest 1957 Kempe ROH Ring on Walhall label, I gave Walkure a spin. I am cautious of 1950s Wagner done outside of Bayreuth since sound quality can be less than expected, but here we have very good sound although not quite as good as 1957-58 Knappy Bayreuth Walhall for instance......previous release on Testament label Amazon user had complained of sound but here no issues I can hear.
What got my attention was Walkure act 3 (Hotter and Nilsson) Hotter gives us a different emotional perspective than his 1952 Keilberth Ring for Myto (recently discussed here) in 1952 he was commanding and authoritative with empathy towards Brunhilde knowing she did what she thought her father really wanted.......in 1957 Kempe he is broken and sounds defeated, there is a sense of self pity, I was surprised to hear this and wondered does Hotter free lance this or do different directors each year emphasize different emotional perspectives, interesting......
Good pick up lad, that's the one we keep talking about.....even better than EMI release with Pristine XR!XR remastering by Andrew Rose at Pristine Audio, August-October 2010
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So far absolutely thrilling and beautiful sound. I have not heard any other release of this recording before but this is wonderful