Customer Reviews

Wagner: The "Ring" Without Words

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Being such a mammoth work, Wagner's Ring isn't something a person can easily jump into, enjoy, and fully understand. To this day, I still feel like a beginner to the work. However, there are a few things that can help a person get somewhat of a grasp on the wonderful music contained therein. This compilation is one of those crucial elements to understanding Wagner's Ring, because the music is where all the action is in the opera. The words are only part of the story. The music on this CD acquaints the listener with the gorgeous melodies and orchestral details in the Ring. Lorin Maazel has created a great synthesis of the four operas that make up this work. The sound is incredible (regardless of what other reviewers might have said, I find the sound to be incredible--detailed & vivid). The performance is excellent as well, which has become the standard of the Berliner Philharmoniker. If you're looking for a great overview of the Ring or are just looking for some wonderful music, give this a try. It's a sure pleaser as long as you're not anti-Wagner.

Bought this CD 14 years ago when I was just out of high school. I've listened to it probably about 500 times. My favorite Wagner CD of all time, probably my favorite CD of all time. Why?

There are so many CDs out there which are simply outtakes of parts of the Ring (like Twilight of the Gods and innumerable others). This is the only one I know of where the conductor sought to spin a long, continuous tapestry of music spanning various parts of the complete opera from beginning to end, placing all the parts in the right order, making sure the end of one selection leads easily into the beginning of another. It's quite a feat and I think Maazel pulled it off exactly right.

The musical interludes they've chosen are weaved together so well you'll have a hard time recognizing that they've just switched from, say, one Act to the next or even one opera to the next.

Anyone who, after buying it, is surprised there is no singing in this CD should have their head examined. The title is "The Ring Without Words" for a reason, meaning there are no words. It's pure music. Occasional voice parts within the music have been replaced by an instrument. Elitists and purists will scoff at the notion of changing Wagner's score, but I say so what? The result is beautiful.

Words so often get in the way and start to crowd out the music, and Wagner's screeching sopranos are no exception. That said, what could be better to the ear for one who doesn't like opera but loves Wagner's rich, powerful music than this? A synthesis of the entire Ring Cycle compressed into a single CD.

In having read the other reviews of this CD, I think many individuals failed to take note of the original intent behind this CD coming about in the first place. Lorin Maazel was commissioned by the recording company (Telarc) to come up with an arrangement of the prime orchestral excerpts of the "Ring," and his 4-step approach listed in the booklet, makes it abundantly clear that NOT ALL of the music commonly heard on other recordings of the orchestral music from the "Ring," would be heard in this arrangement. Also, it is to be inferred that Maazel knows, and obviously doesn't expect his arrangement to take the place of ANY complete recording of the "Ring."

I heard Maazel conduct his arrangement live with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, DC last year. Before that concert, I had never listened to this recording, but I knew about it. So I had the advantage of going into the concert with a fresh mind.

I came out of the concert with the feeling that others before me expressed -- that some of the transitions between familiar excerpts were smooth, some so-so, and others rather clunky. I think Maazel would be the first to admit that he was more successful in some areas of his arrangement, and not as successful in others. So be it. Wagner is tough for anyone and everyone delving into the complete operas, whatever their command of German and musical/orchestral principles.

So, my rating and review of this recording is confined to Maazel's task at hand. I give his effort four stars. Most of this "grade" is confined to the arrangement itself. I give the orchestral playing five stars.

Whatever Wagner may have claimed, his greatest accomplishment is as a musician who was an incredible master of the orchestra. This CD essentially stitches together about 20 excerpts from the Ring Cycle, including the six or seven set pieces (such as Ride of the Valkyries) that you hear in somewhat longer versions on most collections of the Ring's "greatest hits" that some call the "bleeding chunks" of the score. Maazel has made a good selection of pieces and sometimes the stitching is very smooth (e.g., fire music in Walkure to Mime's music in Act I of Siegfried), though other times the transitions are clunky, in that there is no effort to give each piece the sort of ending it might have if presented as an orchestral piece on its own.

The end result doesn't quite hold together, even though the playing is very good and the sound quality terrific. You feel like you are hearing some great pieces of music with some snippets dropping in to fill in the time -- a little like switching between recordings of two different Beethoven symphonies -- great music but not quite designed to be joined this way.

Unless someone is totally allergic to voices, I really would suggest getting familiar with the Ring through the big set pieces and then taking the plunge and trying the operas themselves. A good bridge is Deryck Cooke's musical analysis of the Ring that nicely lays out the work's themes and shows how they develop and tie together. This CD is a lot of fun, but there is even more treasure to be found in the full Ring.

I know that many Wagner purists will dismiss this album with a wave of the hand since there are no vocals in it whatsoever. Being a Wagner enthusiast myself (a Ring addict in particular), I respect what Maazel is trying to do here and I think that he pulled it off very well. The way I see it, this album is useful for two main purposes:

1. To introduce new listeners and opera skeptics to the Ring cycle (a daunting task).
2. Face it, not everyone has 16 hours to devote to music. This is a diverse sampling of Ring excerpts - most of the motives show up somewhere or another and most of the "flashy" orchestral passages are included. Many of the transitions either _are_ smooth or _seem_ smooth to someone not familiar with the Ring (although some of them are outright annoying once you get familiar with the complete work - e.g., Rheingold prelude->Valhalla, Nibelheim->Donner, Rhine Journey->Horn call).

The real reason I love this CD so much is that it was my own bridge to Wagner many years ago. If you are only familiar with the usual overtures and preludes, this gives you something more to listen to without the "screeching sopranos," if you're against that sort of thing (although you will soon get over this feeling once you watch and/or listen to a full-length recording!) I will admit that Maazel can be bland at times, and some of his tempi rather fast, hence the 4 star rating. But a few of the passages on this cd are simply amazing, including for instance Dawn in the Gotterdammerung Prologue, Wotan's farewell in Die Walkure, and even the prelude to Rheingold.

So definitely go for this CD if you are relatively new to Wagner and want to hear more of his music. I recommend it with reservations to listeners already familiar with the Ring, but unless you are completely anti-Maazel I think you will probably enjoy it as a complement to a full recording.

This CD is a true gem. I was never a true Wagner fan. I usually prefer the light chamber music over Wagner's heavy music. However, after listening to this CD, I find that there is much beauty in large works. I strong recommend this CD for those who do not like opera, but still love the music. Without any sang texts, this CD offers the pure orchestral moods of the Ring. (Don't get me wrong. I love the vocal aspects of the Ring as well. It is an essential element to the Ring). It is simply great. This CD is also more inclusive in its selections of the opera than other "wordless" versions of the Ring out there. Besides, the Berlin Philharmonic is simply great. Even without the legendary Herbert von Karajan, it is still an impressive ensemble. Definitely check this CD out!

If you're looking for a single CD of orchestral music from Wagner's Ring, I'd like to recommend this one. Here's why.

Wagner's tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen contains some of the most magnificent, most stirring, most imaginative music ever written (along with some that's pedestrian and dull; there are glorious moments, splendid peaks, and there are arid stretches, longeurs that make one wish that Wagner the supreme egotist had submitted his work to the judgment of a good editor). The four operas comprising it are Das Rheingold (1869), Die Walkure (1870), Siegfried (1876), and Gotterdammerung (1876). Taken together they form the towering masterwork and crowning achievement of Wagner's maturity. They are also immensely long: about 17 hours.

The problem has always been to extract the best parts of the Ring for satisfactory concert presentation. The Ring does not make this easy: it contains no conventional overtures or preludes, no conveniently extractable bits. Thus various hands ever since Wagner's day have carved out "bleeding chunks," with mixed results, and the practice has always been controversial.

This CD presents a different approach. In order to make this recording---to quote the Wagner expert in Third Ear: Classical Music: The Listener's Companion (ed. Alexander J. Morin, 2002; an excellent book, by the way)---"Maazel decided to create his own vast symphonic suite from the Ring, and he has toured with it around the world. . . . If you want to hear the best parts of the Ring without sitting down to 17 hours or so, this is your best bet." I agree. Maazel's 70-minute symphonic synthesis of the best music from the Ring has a consistency, an integration and seamless flow, an organic rightness lacking in other Ring orchestral-highlights programs, with their "bleeding chunks" approach. Also, Maazel's suite gives a better idea of the scope and variety of the Ring, of its full range of colors and sonorities, than the standard orchestral excerpts.

Let Maazel describe his priorities in putting his suite together: "I was intrigued by the challenge: could a symphonic synthesis of the Ring reveal the essentials? I bolted the following list of criteria to my drawingboard: One: the synthesis must be free-flowing and chronological, beginning with the first note of Rheingold and finishing with the last chord of Gotterdammerung. Two: the transitions must be harmonically and periodically justifiable, the pacing contrasts commensurate with the length of the work. Three: most all of the music originally written for orchestra without voice must be used, adding those sections with a vocal line essential to a synthesis . . . . Four: every note must be Wagner's own. . . . Though no conscious attempt was made to include all the Ring's motifs, most of them do surface in one form or another."

The result as represented on this CD is eminently satisfactory. Maazel is a seasoned Wagner conductor, and has conducted the complete Ring at Bayreuth and elsewhere. The Berlin Philharmonic is one of the world's great orchestras. Both it and Maazel are in top form here: the performance is idiomatic and assured, sweeping and eloquent, played to the hilt, bristling with authority and conviction. I hope I'm not being fanciful in finding that listening to the whole suite straight through yields a kind of catharsis. The sound is robust, full-bodied, with wide dynamic range, with solid weight and impact. Telarc's engineers have done a commendable job of coping with the problematic acoustics of Berlin's Philharmonie; this is probably just about the best sound that can be extracted from that vexed venue.

The recording was made in Dec. 1987. Total playing time is 69:40 (broken out as follows: Das Rheingold 14:47, Die Walkure 12:42, Siegfried 6:15, and Gotterdammerung 36:33; if this seems to give short shrift to Siegfried, it has always been musically the weakest of the four operas).

In short, it's hard to imagine a better orchestral introduction to the glories of the Ring. The virtues of this CD move it to the top of its class: highly recommended.

Many people are put off or intimidated from listening to Wagner's operas. "The Ring" is at least 14 CDS long at full length. It could be daunting to even think of listening to the first note, knowing what's ahead.
"The Ring Without Words" is a good place to start. It has Orchestral highlights from all 4 "Ring" operas. Richard Wagner was and is a controversial composer. His world and political views were at worst vile and at best kooky. His personal behavior was low....yet, these orchestral excerpts show the God-given musical genius he possessed right up there with Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven.
I liked most tracks. I didn't like the interpretation of "The Magic Fire Music". For some reason it dragged and it didn't have the expected musical incandescence. The "Siegfried" and "Gotterdamerung" highlights stood out. The conductor was able to capture "the Noble Savage" aspect in Siegfried with those musical bits.

I LOVE The Ring. I bought this cd because I thought it would be all orchestral interludes, it's not. The music from Siegfried is pointless. This cd does not feature one interlude from this great opera, but is rather the music without the vocals- which is DULL, to say the least.

The biggest downfall is The Ride of the Valkyries. It's orchestrations are terrible, and it lacks all the power we've come to expect. The Ride of the Valkyries is best within the context it was written- with the vocals.

The music from Das Rheingold and Gotterdammerung (which is my favorite of the four operas) is wonderful. I will give this cd that.

However, there is a much better cd out there. It's called "Twilight of the Gods: The essential Wagner Collection." It is just that. If you are interested in opera or Wagner than this is the cd to get- it's a DOUBLE CD for the price of one cd. Has twice as much music on it as the cd I am reviewing, and is available from Amazon.

The Ride of the Valkyries is AWESOME (no vocals here either, but it is GREAT), and MUCH better than on The Ring Without Words. This cd has the BIG PUNCH of the famous melody we all know so well, the Ring without Words- lacks that Punch- or any punch for that matter.

Twighlight of the Gods also includes the great music from Das Rheingold, Gotterdammerung (which means- Twilight of the Gods) and Siegfried..including a wonderful interlude.

The Twilight of the Gods is a "soundtrack" to Wagners best music. It includes much more than just music from The Ring. This cd is comparable to Amadeus!

Twilight of the Gods is much better and also features famous orchestras and conductors. It's a great bargin and much more energetic than The Ring Without Words.

Reading some of the other reviews, this is a) the greatest thing since sliced bread or b) a poorly executed hack job. Well, I believe it is neither. My biggest disappointment is that someone decided to put this on one CD only - that is its biggest problem. Another reviewer mentioned glaring omissions and is absolutely right. Had it been longer... but it isn't.

It is one CD only and, in that light, it is pretty good. If your only exposure to The Ring has been the countless movies that have used the "Ride of the Walküries" (included, of course) then you are in for a treat. Repeated listenings and learning about the missing great stuff may lead you to seek out recordings of the different operas or (dare I say it?) attend performances.

For those who carp about the sometimes abrupt transitions, how would you have done better? Please don't say that you would have written transition music. Wagners music starts at the beginning of the act and flows till the end. Sometimes, an abrupt ending is the only choice if you are going to excerpt a section. I speak as an arranger, composer, conductor, orchestra player and singer (I have performed Wotan/The Wanderer).

The reason that Siegfried is the shortest is that you hear a lot of its music in the other three, not because it is somehow musically weaker than the other three.

For the seasoned Wagnerite: You don't need this unless you want to give it as a gift to someone unfamiliar with the music - and then it is perfect.

It should have been 2 CDs.