Customer Reviews

Wagner: Die Walkure / Parsifal

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Don't be put off my the prosaic and somewhat tasteless cover (derived presumably from original artwork), this recording is even better than I had hoped, and better still than intimated in the reviews entered below. There is nothing tasteless about Stokowski's arrangements; the format is of the usual opera-without-words bloody-chunks variety, sounding mostly like Wagner's original orchestrations with instrumental substitutions for the voices (e.g., oboe and bassoon doubling for Wotan's tunes in the the Walkure snippets). The chimes resounding magically in the Good Friday Spell sound real enough to me, not precisely what is typical of the Wagner festival in Bayreuth, but quite ethereal in their effect; and not, as suggested below, the ersatz output of a synthesizer.

These are intensely musical, gorgeously phrased, passionate interpretations. And what is more, the AAD recording dating from 1959 and 1960 is positively stupendous, with smooth transcients, virtually no distortion, a wide frequency range (read, DEEP bass) ,and precious little mechanical noise (i.e., hiss). Little wonder! It's another enduring audiophile production by the infamous Seymour Solomon.

Bathe in its glory!

This is a spectacular aural feast. Leopold Stokowski always took a special interest in recording technique and here are some of the best recorded performances he left us. "Lush" almost doesn't go far enough in describing the sound of Wotan's farewell. Wagner himself sanctioned some of the kinds of excerpting or amalgamation of sections of his operas for concert performance, so forget about criticizing Stoky for this. What he wanted was to use any means necessary, technical and artistic to bring the excitement of Wagner to the public. His success has meant we get treasures such as this marvellous CD. You'll thank yourself for buying this disc.

For those who can not sit through an entire Wagner opera, here we have Stokowski-Wagner. Stokowski re-orchestrates the vocal parts for orchestra, so what you have here is the best opera for orchestra. It practically proves that Wagner could have written symphonies if he wished. Stokowski elicits lush orchestral qualities from Houston, and the results are sumptous. Reccomended to those who are not opera fans, but enjoy the melodies from opera.

I fully agree with the other 5 star reviews. These 1959-60 analog recordings reworked with newer 20 bit tech are far fuller, more mellow, less screechy than some 21st. C. DDD offerings! E.g., the similar program from Naxos, by Serebrier/Bournemouth is totally eclipsed by this old Stokowski, himself leading the Houston Symphony Orchestra. Superior sound, superior conducting, to my ear.

Here we have Stoky messing around again, but while he maddens you, he endears himself to you. You like listening to it and you just need to buy it because your old Everest vinyl is getting ratty.

I kind of like Stoky's "symphonic syntheses" because I can tell myself again that I'm right in thinking Wagner could have dispensed with a couple or three operas and given us some wonderful symphonies. Stoky follows the action, reorchestrates (of course) and composes some snippets of transition material to sort of glom these entries together. And it really works because you enjoy it on an atavistic level and it makes some sort of organic sense...no one knows why it works, but it does.

It's also important that Stoky gets the Houston SO to do the coloristic thing with a lot of polish and because of it, we put up with his foolishness. Here we have all this orchestral splendor and then, perversely, electronic chimes (like your old aunt's doorbell) are drummed in from a keyboard (they may be tracked, any ideas?) You're past caring because either you've had your frosted flakes or your second martini. At either end of the day, it's delicious.

So just buy it, but don't admit it. It's skimpy, but so what. Put it on surreptitiously with your earphones and keep it filed under your bed with your special periodicals.