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Wagner's Ring cycle must be very trying for even the most patient of listeners. As such I am grateful that conductors and arrangers have come up with stand-alone concert arrangements and even CD-length distillations of excerpts from the operas in the cycle.
Maazel got the ball rolling when Telarc suggested he put together a jumbo-sized Ring suite and record it as a CD with the Berliners. Up until then most people who wanted a taste of the Ring without words could get recordings of the concert arrangements that Herrman Zumpe prepared during Wagner's lifetime. These were stand-alone excerpts and did not quite gel well together into a whole. Maazel's potted Ring was the first such digest that I know of at this date of writing. Since then, Henk de Vlieger and Friedmann Dressler have come up with similar jumbo-sized Ring suites.
My general impression of this Maazel digest is that it seems better at conveying the various moods of the opera than at telling the story. He is generous in including many well-known passages, but at times the joins are sudden and clunky. As such the brushstrokes are not exactly smooth. Also, I note that at times Maazel's selection might not be where the action is. We hear a chunk of Wotan's farewell to Brunnhilde but not the Magic Fire because the music dissolves so abruptly into the Siegfried stretch. That said, I find that the synthesis is stronger in the second half than in the first.
This particular compilation gets off to a shaky start after the Rhinegold prelude. It cuts straight to the first iteration of the Valhalla theme rather than to the opening scene with the Rhinemaidens. To my mind, the use of the first iteration of the Valhalla theme overlooks the pyrrhic victory that was achieved when the gods built it. In the Zumpe concert arrangement we hear the theme in its last iteration in this opera and it might be more apt to use this instance and context in a Ring digest like this. After the music for the Nibelheim dwarfs, Donner's thunderbolt dissolves rather abruptly into the storm at the start of The Valkyrie. Another abrupt dissolution comes after Wotan's farewell to Brunnhilde. That scene cuts off before Wotan calls Loge to surround Brunnhilde's rock with the magic fire. However, things wake up from the Forest Murmurs stretch. I don't mind the omission of the "Siegfried cadenza" in which he plays his horn before he kills Fafner. The Twilight of the Gods sequence fares best. It presents Hagen's horn call, the vassals' chorus, and Siegfried's scene with the Rhinemaidens. It skips over the moment Hagen kills Siegfried and cuts straight to his recollections of finding Brunnhilde.
I know that there are rough spots in this compilation, but Maazel is still to be commended for making the Ring palatable. No complaints about the playing of the Berliners and the superb Telarc recording. So I give credit for encouraging others to follow suit with their own jumbo-sized Ring suites. Since Maazel's suite came out, Henk de Vleiger, Friedmann Dressler and Andreas Tarkmann have produced similar Ring distillations that have been recorded. Dressler's version seems to be modelled on Maazel's suite, offering more music and getting close to the heart of the action. Still, this disc is readily affordable compared to the recent SACDs of Ring distillations. In an ideal world, a Ring suite would bring out the narrative more clearly. The Dressler and de Vlieger suite do a better job at highlighting the narrative. I tend to like De Vlieger's suite better, But I'm not disparaging this Maazel distillation for its weaknesses. In any case, let's be grateful that he opened the door for others to present their potted versions of the Ring.
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Customer reviews
This is an outstanding CD; every lover of Wagner's music, especially the 'Ring' cycle, should have this TELARC CD-80154. It sounds just great, & the continuous/seamless music from one 'Ring' selection to the next is simply a fantastic idea that is executed to perfection. Lorin Maazel & the Berliner Philharmonic are to be congratulated on this splendid recording of orchestral highlights; as background music, it enhanced my recent 'Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen' PP presentation at the University of Belgrade. In fact, I purchased 3 copies so that 2 friends could also enjoy this unique CD experience. If you don't already own this incredible CD, then order it while copies are still available!Dr. H. James BirxWilliamsville, New York716 888-2745
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