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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding; a true classic,
By
This review is from: Wagner: Orchestral Music from Der Ring des Nibelungen Die Meistersinger - Tristan und Isolde (Audio CD)
Here is a happy instance of the best performances coming on a generously filled CD which is also budget priced. Hallelujah. George Szell (1897-1970), one of the greatest conductors of the twentieth century, was born in Budapest, studied piano, conducting, and composing in Vienna and Berlin, and learned his craft as a conductor in the opera houses of Europe. World War II brought him to America, where he conducted at the Metropolitan Opera (1942-1946), and finally led the Cleveland Orchestra from 1946 until his death, "molding the ensemble into one of the world's finest," as the Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music notes. Szell and the Cleveland became as distinguished a collaboration as Toscanini and the NBC or Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. Szell brought the Cleveland Orchestra to such a peak of perfection that many good judges considered the Cleveland under Szell the premier conductor/orchestra team in the world. In the late 1950s and the 1960s, the procession of marvelous Szell recordings with the Cleveland Orchestra that came rolling out of Severance Hall became for discerning music lovers a benchmark of excellence; many of them have never been surpassed. (My own list of these nonpareils would include the complete Beethoven symphonies, the complete Beethoven piano concertos with Leon Fleisher, the Beethoven overtures, the Mahler Fourth Symphony, Strauss's Don Quixote, the Dvorak Slavonic Dances, and the Wagner disc under review here, but there are plenty of other worthy candidates from the extensive Szell/Cleveland discography). Szell's hallmarks as an interpreter were vigor, tension, clarity, avoidance of extremes, excess, and eccentricity, complete lack of sentimentality, and masterful control of an orchestra that had become awesomely virtuosic and perfectly responsive in his hands. In sum, a typical Szell/Cleveland performance was taut, disciplined, bristling with energy, insight, and conviction, and immaculately played. His performances virtually never sounded routine, usually had a fresh-minted quality, and had a way of unfolding with an uncanny sense of rightness, of inevitability, conveying the impression that this is the way this music ought to be played. This CD contains the six orchestral excerpts from Wagner's Ring that Szell and the Cleveland recorded in 1968. To these have been added two substantial excerpts from non-Ring Wagner operas, Die Meistersinger and Tristan und Isolde, recorded in 1962. All the performances are superb, as fine as any in the catalog. The sound is good, clear and full, if not up to the best standards of today. The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs, in reviewing this CD, awarded it their highest honor, a rosette, and said of it: "The orchestral playing here is in a very special class. Its virtuosity is breathtaking. Szell generates the greatest tension . . . and the improvement in [sound] quality with the latest remastering for CD is little short of miraculous. This is worthy of Szell's extraordinary achievement in Cleveland in the 1960s." As noted, the CD is very generously filled (almost 77 minutes of music) and budget priced. Talk about a good deal! So what are you waiting for?
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
one of the best especially at budget price,
By
This review is from: Wagner: Orchestral Music from Der Ring des Nibelungen Die Meistersinger - Tristan und Isolde (Audio CD)
I share the very favourable sentiments of other reviewers about this recording. Generally the orchestral playing is of the very highest quality and Szell sustains a high level of tension without the music feeling somewhat overdriven, as was the case with some of Toscanini's later recordings with the NBC Symphony. Certainly the Ring excerpts are convincing and the finale of Gotterdammerung, tacked on to the Funeral March without a break, makes a thrilling, apocalyptic impact. The Meistersinger Act I Prelude is played at a sensible tempo, with the multiple polyphony coming through very clearly, and the Tristan excerpts are also very strong and intense, although some listeners might prefer here a slower pace. Szell's work as a general rule was utterly lacking in sentimentality, prefering instead to let the emotion of the music come through discipline and precision. This no-nonsense approach works here. The sound is a bit dated, but that should not deter anybody. The documentation is excellent. At budget price, this can be enthusiastically recommended.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A summit,
By
This review is from: Wagner: Orchestral Music from Der Ring des Nibelungen Die Meistersinger - Tristan und Isolde (Audio CD)
One of the truisms about George Szell is that he was a "cold" conductor (British music critics often recycle this claim). It's a total misrepresentation: you will NEVER hear these selections from the Ring played with such extraordinary emotional intensity. Add to that some of the most breathtaking orchestral virtuosity ever recorded, and you have one of the great classics of recorded music in our century. You'll never hear a better "Siegfried's Funeral Music," I guarantee.
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