Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen (Ring Cycle) / Sir Georg Solti
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Free Music Notes for Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen (Ring Cycle) / Sir Georg Solti
Free Music Review: A great achievement, but....
Hit: 3 Stars
Solti's Ring cycle is certainly one of the great achievements in the history of recorded music. The story behind the first studio Ring is now legendary... how a young producer named John Culshaw undertook the most ambitious recording project in history to create his vision for the ultitmate Ring. Boasting an all-star cast and utilizing the best available technology to its fullest potential, the final result was a Ring cycle for the ages... or so was the general consensus. But as time wore on and new Ring cycles by Bohm, Karajan, and (most recently) Keilberth have become available, this set's flaws become all too obvious.
Listening to any of these Solti/Culshaw operas, one immediately has to adjust for a musical barrage of exaggerated climaxes, hyped up dynamics, and (sometimes silly) sound effects. The result being that these great works come across as sounding too much like a typical Hollywood blockbuster. Admittedly the sound quality is often outstanding, but balances often seem ill-chosen with performers frequently on the verge of being overwhelmed by the orchestral soundscape. (Windgassen in particular is treated without much sympathy from either conductor or producer.) In addition, Solti's obsession with rhythmic precision and excessive punctuation often seem to shortchange the more lyrical aspects of the score. Revisiting Furtwangler on EMI or Karajan on DG as a point of comparison, one can hear how Solti prefers to deliver a sock to the solar plexus rather than gently tug at the heart strings. This ultra-theatrical approach is impressive at first, but all those in-your-face climaxes quickly grow wearisome. Even worse, Solti's aggressive tempos sometimes have the opposite effect by arbitrarily slowing to a crawl and thereby robbing a particular scene of its forward momentum. For example, check out the Forging Scene in Siegfried- perhaps the most boring on disc. But more to the point, Solti and Culshaw's approach tends to give these operas a rather episodic feel... more like a collection of highlights than a continuous work.
Ultimately, the litmus test for any great Ring cycle is whether it holds up well upon repeated hearings. Unfortunately, whenever I now (try to) listen to one of these operas and once again find myself having to cope with Solti's agressive tempos, the wierd balances, and the utter lack of subtlety, it almost always feels more like a chore than a pleasure.
I wonder how many of its devoted fans can still survive listening through the whole cycle...
Free Music Review: Brunnhilde Was Not Happy
Hit: 5 Stars
I love this set and wouldn't be without it and think the remastering is an improvement over the first generation CD release. It is somewhat interesting that Decca hasn't re-mastered it further.
Anyway, interesting that Birgit Nilsson was never really that happy with the recording. Her huge voice was somewhat scaled down by the engineers in favor of the orchestral detail and volume. I heard Nilsson live enough to remember her never being drowned out by the orchestra. In her autobiography, she felt better balance was struck with this release but she was so dissatisfied with the "Walkure" recording that she almost refused to have the recording released. I actually prefer her performance in the complete live Bayreuth Ring on Phillips, conducted by Karl Bohm. That's the Brunnhilde I remember.
The other problem with this set and this is really minor, considering the medium. This music does not sound like this when heard in a theater or ever in concert. The Decca engineers were out to make a big sonic bang with these operas, and they did. The sound is incredible and if you try it on an iPOD, you'll be walking into walls.
Free Music Review: The Greatest Listening Experience You Can Ever Have
Hit: 5 Stars
I have owned three versions of this classic recording. My first as a set of cassette tapes that I worked part-time one summer just be be able to purchase. The second version was an early CD recording, and my third purchase was this remastered set.
This is the definitive listening experience for anyone who loves music, art, poetry and literature. I have long felt that the musical drama is the apogee of art, in that it combines so many art forms into one experience: poetry, music, singing, instrumentation, narrative, costume design, and set design.
One does not experience all of these by listening to a CD recording, but we all cannot travel to Bayreuth every time we want to experience Wagner.
I own many recordings of THE RING, and eack one has something to offer. But for sheer enjoyment and power, Solti's RING is it for me. It is my desert island disc set!
Free Music Review: Unique and legendary-this is Solti's Ring
Hit: 4 Stars
This is, by any standards, a phenomenal achievement. I would recommend it to anyone, both new and experienced to the ring cycle to purchase this and it is, and shall remain, a landmark in studio recording. However, as a complete ring cycle, I consider Bohm's and Barenboim's to at least be its equal. Still, Solti's Gotterdammerun, Siegfried, and Rhinegold are areguably the finest on record-but his Walkure is, despite a great Act I, pretty shoddy-due mainly to Hans Hotter shaky Wotan. Hotter comes through magnificently as the Wanderer, especially in Act III of Siegfried-but Walkure finds Hotter a shadow of his brilliant, incomparable former self. I pity those who know Hotter only through this cycle-for how could they be expected to understand why he considered "THE" Wotan for the ages. TO understand that, one must turn to his Krauss53, KNA56, and the recently released Keilberth55 cycle(of which the Krauss and Keilberth to be superior to this cycle on all accounts-with the exception of sound) A side not-Astrid varnay is the Brunnhilde in those performances and her voice is much more in line with what I believe Brunnhilde to be and her Keilberth performance is the single greatest performance of that role on recordl....period.
But, with the exception of the Keilberth, the krauss should be reserved till after you are familiar with Wagner and historical sound.
This is a page turning performance(in the manner of Krauss rather than the meditative KNA-while Keilberth falls in between the two). Its intensity is truly only rivalled and exceeded by the Krauss.
Its cast is a concotion of the best the opera world had to offer at the time.
George London is Wotan in Rhinegold, before Hotter takes over for Walkure and Siegfried. Nilsson is Brunnhilde, a marvelous performance with really no drawbacks.
though individually-among post Keilberth versions(which is in stereo) there is arguably no finer Ring except for possible Bohm's(though I find Theo Adam to be too weak as Wotan but I prefer Brigid Nilsson's performance to this one). Barenboim's has great sound and John Tomlinsons Wotan to support it. Tomlinson turns in one of, if the not the, greatest Wotan performance of our time(along with James Morris\Levine on DVD). Between Levine and Barenboim however, Barenboim excells on all levels.
Cycles-
Krauss, Keilberth, KNA56
Solti\Bohm, Barenboim
Finest individual performances
Rhinegold-Solti, Karajan,Krauss
Walkure-Krauss, Keilberth,KNA
Siegfried-Keilberth, Solti
Gotterdammerung-Keilberth, Solti,Krauss,KNA
Free Music Review: Still the best, but...
Hit: 4 Stars
Great performances by all, unsurpassed by any other I've heard, plus wonderful sound effects, but the original sound has been somewhat degraded by a "de-hissing" process, compared with the original CD of excerpts. Too bad.