Customer Reviews

Wagner: Greatest Hits

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This selection of Wagner's "Greatest Hits" is a great CD, with a good selection, overall, or Wagner's most representative work, and very good sound quality. The recordings are all by famous orchestras and conductors--including Eugene Ormandy, Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops--and the sound is terrific. Listen to this CD on a good stereo.

The tracks themselves represent some of Wagner's best work. "Chor der Pilger" from the opera Tannhäuser is sung in an English translation, but this doesn't detract from the power of the music itself. Of course, there are the requisite tracks of "Siegfrieds Rheinreise" and the "Walkürenritt," or "Ride of the Valkyries;" both of which are very good, and having both on the same CD is nice.

Highly recommended for anyone who likes Wagner or classical music in general. Again: listen to this on a good sound system.

I am a Wagner fan and an Ormandy fan, but this combination just doesn't click. It is not bad, but everything on it has been done better by someone else. I think Ormandy was too well-adjusted to play Wagner well.

So, I guess I would recommend it as an introduction, as there is a good variety here. And, it is pretty reasonable.

I only knew one or two of Wagner's compositions. I never knew he wrote the "wedding march" till I listened to this CD. This collection expanded my knowledge of Wagner a little bit but I'm still looking for a better collection of his music.