Customer Reviews

Mozart: Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute - Prima Voce Series) / Beecham, Strienz et al

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With good reason, this recording of Mozart's sublimely silly masterpiece has never been out of the catalog since it was released in the late 1930's. The singers are mostly an outstanding group--Tiana Lemnitz, Helge Rosvaenge, Gerhard Hüsch...(who is arguably the finest Papageno ever put on wax, vinyl, tape, or aluminum backing). What makes it such a wonder, however, is Sir Thomas Beecham's leadership, at the helm of the Berlin Philharmonic. Beecham, more so than any other conductor, knows how to strike the right balance between the slapstick silliness of some scenes and the gloriously solemn atmosphere of others. What truly makes Sir Thomas' interpretation unique is that he makes both aspects of the opera part of a whole--conceived in Mozart's own dualistic mind. I can think of no other better performance of this masterpiece.

Constantly in print since the time of its first release,this beautiful recording have a perfect balance between sonoric,weighty moments of drama and crispy,almost champaigne-bubbly giddines of a fairy tale.Its a testament to a Mozart talent as a composer to spread his magic around absurdly fantastic libretto by Schikaneder and to a Beecham to get everything just right at the time when audience was exposed to fashion of Sibelius and Strauss,while "Magic flute" itself languished unperformed,strange as it sounds now.It was producer Walter Legge who gently pushed Beecham in this project,convincing him that musicians in places like Salzburg,Vienna,Munich and Berlin have better historical awareness and tradition to perform this piece and once the wheels were set in motion,everything went assuredly and smoothly,the whole opera recorded in seven days.What strikes me interesting here is the fact that such a magical music was done in Berlin 1937. with all the darkness of war approaching (Tauber and Kipnis,being jewish,couldnt participate in this recording) and still the participants were so focused and commited as their lives depend on music. Before mentioned champaigne-bubbliness of a piece is very,very endearing and makes for heart-warming listening experience,no wonder this 1937. recording overhsadows many of later recordings in stereo - they might have added dialogue (Beecham refused to have dialogue in his recording,rightly arguing that it doesnt improve on repeated home listening and I completely agree with him) but gentleness,affections,magic and beauty are all here.

The booklet details the difficulties Walter Legge in assembling and ideal cast in the Berlin of 1937 under Hitler; several first choice singers were either Jewish and obviously "unavailable" or, like Ludwig Weber, reluctant to risk compromising the recording because the repeated "Doch" was too low for him (yet he recorded the role satisfactorily for Karajan after the war). Yet the assemblage of singers here is very good indeed, entirely idiomatic, relaxed, immersed in the Viennese tradition and able to transfer their acumen to Berlin. For me, the star of the show is not Tiana Lemnitz, who is a shade tremulous and mature for the role despite the beauty of her tone and floating top notes, but Erna Berger, whose pinpoint accuracy and sustained evenness of vocal production as the Queen of the Night are a just ideal. I have come increasingly to appreciate Wilhelm Strienz's Sarastro for its warmth and humanity and the naturalness of his phrasing, despite his not having the deepest, blackest German bass ever. Naturalness is the principal feature of Gerhard Hüsch's Papageno, too; he makes him a genial, lovable figure. Many have objected to Roswaenge's rather strenuous Tamino: he scoops and sounds more heroic than boyish, but it's a pleasure to hear such a robust tenor - Jonas Kaufmann will no doubt have listened to him and noted how a big voice can sing Tamino if it retains its flexibility. The smaller roles are cast from strength and although a modern listener might regret the lack of dialogue and libretto, many conductors of the old school, including Klemperer, were of the opinion that for home listening by non-German speakers the dialogue was a mere irritant. So we have here a concert performance which still hangs together owing to the way Mozart so cunningly balanced the light entertainment with deeper themes and allowed the music to reflect both without incongruity.

No-one understood better how to elicit the innate charm of this music than Beecham, and he had the finest orchestra available to realise his vision. His delicacy and subtlety with the score are extraordinary and the Berlin Philharmonic respond with unfailing sensitivity and virtuosity; we hear lovely playing from individual instrumentalists and ensembles are both tightly knit and dynamically graduated.

I like what Nimbus does to these old 78's and have no problem with a little air and space around the sound; it reduces hiss without obscuring detail. This set is available so cheaply that it might appeal beyond the confines of the historical opera recording buffs and open a window onto a vanished age of elegance.

The Prima Voce series of CDs caters to a small cult that believes that the only way to play old records is on a horn gramophone with a cactus needle. There may be some validity to this approach for very old, acoustically-recorded material (although I doubt it), but by 1937 (the vintage of this recording) the art of recording had progressed very well, and there is a lot of real-sounding music in the grooves. But the Prima Voce process subjects the music to the resonance of the playback horn, giving us sound that peaks at about 800Hz and falls off rapidly both above and below that. The result is the "desiccated quality of the 1930s monaural sound" that Amazon's reviewer complains of; the shame is that it is the re-recording process, not the original records themselves, that give us that quality.

Add to this injustice the Prima Voce practice of placing the gramophone in a reverberant room, and using a microphone setup designed for surround sound. In other words, they deliberately record a lot of room resonance while recording the music, sound that was never a part of the original recording.

Believe me, a properly reproduced version of this Beecham recording does not sound "desiccated" at all.

This brings back memories of my record collecting days!
Ahhhh those old brittle 78's I always thought it was a shame they weren't less crackly.
I think Nimbus did a good job of redoing this 1937 recording.
Just for us to still have access to pre WWII music of any kind is amazing I think!
Some of the bad reviews I have seen of this really make me scratch my head.
It's a 1937 recording folks....technology was almost non existant at the time.
The first non cylinder music played on essentially a horn with a nail at the end of it.
Of course it's not even gonna come close to today's standards nor can we make it.
If people think this sounds bad....try a 78 on you high end turn table and see how it sounds!
The quality was the best they could have back then and we don't have tapes or the like to work from.
Yes it's gonna lose a little of the quality when you filter out some of the hiss and crackle.
Working from a fragile thick piece of bake-o-lite I think this was well done.

Beecham at his best as He was one of the greats of his time.
This is a definite must have for your collection...if not for the performance....it's Historical value.
Performance is audio history at it's best!