Owners of the Solti version really need to get John Culshaw's book "Ring Resounding" about the production of that justifiably famous set. Terrific read. But for headphone listening, Karajan's is the easiest of the ears IMO.
It is a pity that when he wrote the book, Culshaw did not know that Ernst Kozub was in precarious health and may well have decided that he needed to try to make as much as he could while he still could, even in the knowledge that he might not be able to fulfil engagements. I don't know if Jon Vickers was approached but he would never have worked with Solti after the Covent Garden debacle.
When I bought my first Solti Ring, it was on LP and a set of books, including Culshaw's "Ring Resounding" was included. Great insights to the challenges of recording the work. I loved the Solti so much, that I bought the identical set when it came out on CD. The only other Ring I have is Levine and the Met on DVD, since it was one of the few "traditional" stagings available on DVD. I did not want to buy a version that would be of the moment and outdated before the Rhine washed over Hagen.
I was from Hong Kong (I immigrated to the States 28 years ago). I listened to Hong Kong Philharmonic growing up. This Ring recording is the best I have ever heard from my home town orchestra. It completely changed my opinion towards them. After the pandemic I hope I will get a chance to listen to them live again
Oh no I would never ever expected the Hong Kong Philharmonic to be featured in the list of David Hurwitz’s list of the Ring recordings to go for, together with the titans like Solti, Keilberth and Karajan etc!!! As a HKer I am ashamed to not giving enough attention to my hometown orchestra. Now I must rush out and get this recording, fast!
The 1955 Keilberth is my favorite Ring overall. I know the Solti is more technically perfect, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn the work from it, but the Keilberth offers an amazing sonic window into what was surely one of Bayreuth's greatest decades.
Hands down, Solti has the best anvil chorus (in Rheingold), the best collapse of Valhalla and alphorns (Götterdämmerung). Oh, and the music is pretty good, too.
I think musically, Solti’s Valhalla collapse is great, but I’d like it a hell of a lot better without the burning sound effects when Brünnhilde jumps into the pyre.
@@charlescoleman5509 I like the sound effects, it makes you feel like you are watching it on stage, rather than just listening to it. Wagner is meant to be watched, not just listened to but sadly, every stage director today thinks otherwise! 🤮
@@mogmason6920 Sure, Wagner operas, like all operas, are meant to be watched. But Wagner has taken care of the dramatic things than happen via his score. You hardly need any cheap audio effects to enhance the amazing music that accentuates the story to begin with.
@@ftumschk Don't be surprised. John Culshaw had to have the steerhorns made for the Decca recording! Even then, orchestras simply substituted trombones. However, a good lead nowadays might be the producers of those ads for Ricola cough drops!
There are two Sieglinde screams in Böhm. End of Act 1 scream of ecstasy and end of Act 2 scream of sorrow. She also ends in a vocal volcanic eruption of hope in Act 3. Rysanek was truly an exceptional singer.
I enjoyed Dave's retelling of Leonie Rysanek's scream. However, one fine evening at the Met Jon Vickers pulled and pulled, yet Notung wouldn't budge. And then finally out it came in pieces, with something flying into the orchestra pit while another fragment just missed Sieglinde's head. The performance was unusual in that Birgit Nilsson was singing the role of Sieglinde, not Brunnhilde. Well, Nilsson let out a shriek, but it was a shriek of terror, not of joy. Many in the audience, including myself, cracked up in hysterics. This greatest singers also had a keen sense of humor and was really fast on her feet.
Nice reviews, Dave.. Loved Wagner since I saw Nilssson at the Met in the early 60s (in Gotterdammerung, she had a live, four-legged Grane--who nuzzled her). It's a shame that toda,y no one dare utter the name of James Levine who was a master Wagner conducter. Levine, along with Barenboim, were my favorites. I hold a special affection for Barenboim, however. He seems to me to be able to extract the marrow from Wagner's sensibilies better than anyone; I feel it all the way down to my bones. His closing of Gotterdamerung (I beleive it's on his "Cycle" recording) is breathtaking. He summoned his"Barenboim horns" to great dramatic effect.
Notwithstanding his deserved moral reckoning, Levine as a Wagner conductor can hardly hold a candle to Solti, Karajan, Bohm, Furtwangler, Barenboim, and Thielemann, among many others. Slow labored interpretations lacking a coherent structure.
On the subtopic of Hans Hotter, in the late 1970s I got to hear the elderly Hans Hotter leading a master class in voice at the San Francisco Conservatory. Once or twice he illustrated how a phrase just sung by a student could go better, treating all around to that familiar woolly, wobbly but oracular Wotan-like voice (he must have been eighty-ish at the time). I stood probably only three or four feet behind him. I stayed a few minutes then slunk out, probably thinking (foolishly) this was an event best left to the singers.
As a Wagnerite, a Knappertsbuschite, and a dedicated third nornist, I endorse this video. [edit] now that I've finished watching the video - what an awesome, thoughtful, and straightforward video :) good job!
I have in my collection: Boehm, Keilberth, Solti, Karajan, Furtwaengler '50 and '53, Krauss, Knappertsbusch '57 and '58. If I had to choose two, it would be the historic Keilberth and Stereo "in Bayreuth", Boehm!!
Great choice on the HKPhil Ring set. I attended some of these live concerts. Thrilling experience despite it’s not fully staged plays. Can’t forget that leb wohl delivered by Goerne, kept listening to this piece today. Dilemma of the Wagner Ring - the recording is getting better yet the singers are getting worse.
I am on the floor laughing. Great review, David. Excellent reviews. And your synopses of the various Wagner camps were spot on (and hilarious). My favorite three are Solti, Karajan, and Bohm--all have flaws, I love 'em all. For me they helped me gain an appreciation not just for Wagner, but how a conductor's vision shapes the performance.
I own the Karajan (as an orchestral musician, I love it over all others), and know the Solti, Boulez and Barenboim very well. I couldn’t agree with you more. Very fair critiques . Your comments are spot on! I must hear the Böhm… exciting and raw? Böhm? Who knew? 😂 Thanks again, David.
It is really very good Jack. Much as I have issues about Bohm as a human being he could be very exciting. Yes his Ring is a bit rough sometimes orchestrally (close miking of brass etc) but it is terrifically exciting, try Gotterdammerung Act 2! But similarly he was very exciting in Strauss and Berg.
For me, the problem with the Solti cycle is Solti himself. He's great in the dramatic and hard-hitting moments, but his foot is still on the accelerator in the spiritual and more tender or heart-wrenching passages. In comparison, even Karajan sounds more spiritual.
I can't understand Wagner nuts who must hear every Wagner recording. Whenever I re-listen to my 10 least favorite Ring Cycles, just to remind myself why they're so bad, I always vow to myself never to listen to them again for at least the following 3 months.
Much enjoyed your exploration of 'Ring' recordings - my own journey with this most amazing of works of art started in the late 70s when BBC Tv broadcast the whole Boulez Ring in acts on consecutive Sunday evenings...and I was hooked! I then started to explore those recordings then available, as well as reading as much literature on the subject (a lot!). First came a Ring you didn't mention: EMI's Goodall/English National Opera, recorded live in Coliseum, London. I started with that as I saw live this Valkyrie (I later saw the WNO Ring, also in English, with Anne Evans who was in the Barenboim Ring at Bayreuth) and was bowled over by both cast and conducting. But very soon I wanted a set in German, so home came the Solti...and a lifelong love affair with this amazing recording - so much so that I read the producer, John Culshaw's 'Ring Resounding' and decided I must visit the Sofiensäle in Vienna to see where this legendary recording (and many other Decca recordings) were made....I achieved this ambition only 5 years ago - the Sofiensäle now restored after the disastrous fire. For live I have Böhm and the '55 Keilberth.....BTW Culshaw discusses the Keilberth in the above book as he was present when it was recorded - he also greatly disparages Böhm's...perhaps on the grounds that he didn't record it! I have most of the other 'studio' Rings you mention, but none tops the Solti.....Oh, I think the DVDs of the Levine/Met Ring might be a pretty good starting point for the novice, with it's 'traditional' staging.
This past year, my professor of Aesthetics of Music at the Superior Conservatory of Music of Valencia, said in full class and without blushing, that listening to Wagner is unbearable and boring, but yes, that I open my mind to tribal music indigenous and urban music and that I was not so closed in music, because I replied that for me these last two were not art. For me, this little woman has never heard an opera, from whoever she is, in her life. And a concert or symphony I don't think either. This is the level of many teachers in higher centers in Spain.
Wagner bad, Rap good! On a serious note, this reminds of a friend who described Beethoven as a “Robot” rather than a musician, because his music is written down rather than spread aurally. He listens to nothing but Reggaeton btw! All of which sounds the same! 😂😂😂
Saying that indigenous music and rap is not art is also a perspective that betrays a lack of actual cultural comprehension. When an artist strives for perfection it is satisfying and when an artist doesn't strive for perfection the art form becomes a caricature of itself, be it urban music, tribal music, or classical music (especially Opera). It is interesting that Leo Tolstoy wrote a book called "What is Art?" where he really ponders on the excesses of classical music in his time and praises the purity of expression in folk art. That is very understandable and there are many great composers who studied, borrowed and collected folk melodies because the absence of pretentiousness in those melodies made them more powerful. Any great composer that has spent time in Spain has appreciated the abundance of indigenous melodies and rhythms available there. No?
This is the attitude of the "woke" movement in America as well. Anything from the West must necessarily be bad because it was created by white oppressors.
I've gotten to slightly prefer Varnay to Nilsson's Brunnhilde interperatively. When my VHS tapes of the Levine/Met/Otto Schenk production died, I got a DVD set of Barenboim's Ring and it's marvelous as well! More modern, more interesting, but not crazy. great chat!
Thanks for the video!! I am wondering how Rudolf Kempe's cycles sound. I found two sets on the market - Bayreuth 61 and Covent Garden 57. I regard many of Kempe's recordings as reference-level, so I'm very curious.
No matter which is your favorite, I claim special consideration for the Solti (sort of like a "Lifetime Achievement Award). I believe it was the first one issued commercially, it put Wagner on the map, put Nilsson on the map, put the VPO on the map, put Culshaw on the map, put Decca/London on the map, etc. Even if it's not your favorite, the interest generated by the Solti ring (IMO) helped greatly in selling future issues (whether originally recorded before or after the Solti).
I was all geared up to be a contrarian but I must say I pretty much agree with all of this. I think the ‘53 Krauss has to be the most theatrical version on disc (Alberich’s curse in Rheingold still chills me). But I do find myself grimacing a lot more at the Solti these days and pushing it further to the bottom of the pile now there are so many other splendid recordings.
I have the complete Solti set on vinyl now...I change the LPs more often than my underwear. Ummm......yeah. But there is something special and amazing about this recording on vinyl.
My first Ring was Solti's and I think I made good choice with that. I love the Ring, it is one of my greatest artistic experience. I was Furtwängler fanatic years ago and I bought the La Scala Ring too in French Furtwängler Society remaster. I think that version has an acceptable sound and quite balanced regards to the orchestra and singers. (I can't stand with recordings where singers are sings into my face but orchestra sounds far away behind them. I want to hear the orchestral performance too.) So I like Furtwängler's version also because now I am quite familiar with the Ring. But the worst thing in that for me is the ending of Die Walküre and the Götter. That stupid audience can't wait for the end and start clapping while the beautiful ending chords are still played. That is very annoying for me. I listened to excerpts from Keilberth's Ring on youtube but the sound is ruined by that very harsh brass sound. I like when brass sounds are played loud but in that case it sounds like the microphones are placed into the horn of the brass instruments. When brasses are playing, they suppress everything else on that recording.
@@orientaldagger6920 Thank you for the reply! I didn't buy another Ring cycle since than. Orchestral performance is important for me (maybe more important than singing). In the meantime I decided that if I will buy another Ring that will be Karajan's. But not now.
Such a nice and passionate video of the Opus Magnum by the greatest composer ever! My favorite (as a native German): Clemens Krauss 1953 live recording from Bayreuther Festspiele. Never heard anything better!
I wouldn't call myself a historical recording nut (all-in-all I prefer Janowski's Dresden Ring with its crystal clear leitmotivs), but for those who are not averse to somewhat older sonics, I can really recommend the (uncut and very decently recorded) 1949 Vienna Rudolf Moralt Ring. It features the older generation of prewar singers and offers a glimpse of how Wagner must have sounded to the ears of interbellum composers like Berg, Schoenberg, Strauss, etc. And it's so well sung/enunciated that for those who understand German, you can follow the text without the libretto.
1949 and 1953 Krauss is not too far away tho. Might as well recommend the 1928 Parsifal and Siegfried Wagner early Bayreuth singers to hear what Wagner would have had which is more convincing
Excellent discussion. Thank you! One question: where, oh, where can I get that fabulous shirt?! "Abnormal is fine. Stupid is not"? That's perfect! I love it!
Thank you for a very informative video. I’m pleased that you highlighted the Naxos Ring as I bought that years ago as individual releases as they were issued. I always thought highly of them but they were rarely mentioned in reviews, so I’m happy that you thought so highly of them.
Thank Bob Levine, ClassicsToday's opera critic who has the finest ear in the business, and absolutely no prejudice where quality is concerned. He's taught me more than I can begin to express.
“Cultists are nuts”. 😂😂😂😂. Couldn’t agree more. Grew up with the Solti Ring which has spoilt me for any others. The dream cast cannot be even closely matched today and Culshaw’s production/engineering is legendary.
I prefer my Wagner on video--you really need to see the staging of the opera in order to get the full effect. I like my Wagner to be as close to a movie as possible. However I just broke my own rule 2 weeks ago and bought the Naxos Hong Kong Philharmonic Wagner Ring becuase i had read so much about its quality and so far it's only on cd (as far as I know). So far I'm liking what I hear in this new Ring. Is it the best Ring ever? no--you can get much better historical productions.For example the Kupfer-Barenboim Bayreuth Ring is still one of the best of all time both in staging and in sound. The Barcelona Ring staging was as close to modern Star Wars as you could get--very entertaining to watch on video. However I will say that the Hong Kong Ring in my opinion is the best sounding Ring of the contemporary era (last 15-20 years or so) Your mileage may vary--i know many that say the modern Lepage Metropolitan Opera from several years ago is the best sung of the contemporary era, but i think the Hong Kong sounds better. The orchestra especially sounds wonderful. I agree with Dave you cant go wrong by buying it. It's worth your money.
Thanks Dave for the interesting choice, and as a Wagner and opera cookie I agree with almost everything. Indeed I find myself agreeing with you on many of your reviews. I might however prefer some of the individual operas in isolated recordings (like Furtwangler's studio Walkure, or Leinsdorf's Walkure with G London as Wotan, or that incredibly intense and black granite Gotterdammerung recorded live in Oslo with the 62 year old Flagstad) What's your opinion on my theory that Wagner is not a passion, it's a disease?
I hope you've heard this by now. First time I ever heard the ring, I thought it was terrible music. Years later, I heard it again, and my life changed. Overall, I prefer the Boulez.
Now this is too much, Dave! I'm going to unsubscribe here and now. You failed to mention the legendary 1987 mono remaster of the 1956 bootleg of the two last acts of "Die Walküre" from the Ostwestfälisches Landestheater Bad Schuychsenhausen, where an indisposed Kna was at the very last minute replaced by Karl Anselm Müller-Brachtenhoeck. You clearly have NO IDEA of Wagner, and no authority whatsoever to pronounce yourself on such hallowed subjects!
My Ring recordings go back to the 1930’s Potted ring on HMV Black Label, ( Pearl reissue on CD and Original 78 rpm-records)the conducting being shared between Albert Coates, Leo Blech, and Heger? The La Scala Ring is ok if you get a cleaned up version of it. It has more fire than the Rome Ring. As far as “Modern” Cycles are concerned I’ve always had a great love for the 1966 Bohm Cycle ( I’ve owned this on Vinyl and now have it on CD) I prefer the Solti Cycle to the Karajan Cycle. I also rather like the ENO recording in English under Goodall. I’m a great Rita Hunter fan.
I own both the Karajan and the original Solti with the Culshaw hard bound book on LP, that is a story in itself as I found the Solti box set sealed, unopened at a record dealer where I normally would purchase rock, jazz more contemporary music. I came in to pickup an order and as I left I couldn't believe my eyes, the box set sitting on a shelf. It just came in from a larger purchase the store made. Prior to that, I've seen three sets; one loaned to me and two others for sale that were in terrible shape. Sometimes things just fall into your lap. Have you ever heard the Esoteric Audio reissue on SACD(ESSD-90021~34) of the Solti? I understand that it's the best sounding set out there but perusing eBay they go for thousands of dollars.
A very interesting video! I just listened to The Ring Cycle for the first time, and I'm very much interested in listening to it again, and in other versions. Out of personal curiosity, how do people tend to feel about Swarowsky's Ring? I found the entire recording in my local library, and I thought it was very good. Though I'm not familiar with opera or Wagner, so what do I know? Very informative video!
My discovery of the ring was through the Karajan version, and I must say that to this day, after many more Rings, Gundula Janowitz remains the ideal Sieglinde for me. What she does with the O hehrstes Wunder in the third act is just amazing and since then, every time I hear it elsewhere, I can't help but be a little disappointed....
Hey dave, great video, but I have to mention that today we don’t have opera singers. Everyone today is a fake singer with 0 technique and 0 ability. In every possible aspect.
I wish I'd have watched this before beginning my Wagner journey. Having bought the Furtwängler La Scala recording on vinyl, I can confirm the sound is trash 😅
I am currently at the Bayreuth Festival and heard an absolute horrible Walküre and a really mediocre Tannhäuser. And you are absolutely right. The people here are just mental….😂But it is to some degree quiet funny.
I've listened to excerpts of Walküre, and wasn't impressed. I saw Klaus Florian Vogt's Lohengrin at Bayreuth in 2015, and his light voice was fine; it vaguely reminded me of Jess Thomas, in fact, and that's no bad thing. However, Vogt just doesn't cut it as Siegmund, which is almost a high baritone role. What a shame!
@@ftumschk Sadly Vogt wasn‘t the problem on that evening. Of course he has not the typical voice for Siegmund but he was better than expectet, because his voice became slightly darker compared to earlier in his career. But still not suiting for the role. The conducting was the main problem… Absolutely uninteresting, dull, slow and unexciting. There is a live stream on youtube from the opening night of the Walküre (the performance which I saw) and it sounds better and livlier compared to what I heard. I saw the last Walküre from the Castdorf-Ring in 2017, conducted by Janowski, which was a stunning and exciting performance. He was so much more exciting than on his digital recording and of course 100 times better than Inkinen now. I had a discussion with a friend of mine, who visits Bayreuth regularly since 1966. He heard great performances with Böhm, Nilsson, Windgassen etc. and I asked him, why the musical quality is very variable these days. He said, that for most conductors at that time, Bayreuth was the summit of a long successfull career. Today they invite rather young, unexperienced people, like Inkinen, who are at the beginning of a career. Of course the situation in the Bayreuth orchestra pit was always difficult and big conductors, like Solti, failed. But when you are young, unexperienced and you have to face the difficult aspects of that pit, it can end like it ended with Inkinen. And of course there were conductors who were pretty young and successfull when they conducted the first time in Bayreuth, like Sawallisch who was in his thirties. But that is rather special and not normal. You never know what you get in Bayreuth.
@@philippborghesi1060 I saw the Castorf Ring in annual increments from 2013 onwards, and had enjoyed Petrenko in the first three operas. I was initially disappointed when he dropped out in 2016 (I think it was because he'd been given the Berlin PO job), but thrilled when it was announced that Marek Janowski would be taking over in his place. Having long been a fan of Janowski's Eurodisc Ring Cycle, I was delighted to get the chance to hear him conduct a Ring opera live. Like you say, you never know what to expect at Bayreuth - and, in this instance, it was a very welcome bonus :)
@@philippborghesi1060 Oksana Lyniv made a stunning debut conducting Holländer, in my opinion. At least that is what I say after having listened to the stream provided by Bavarian Radio (Bayern Klassik). BTW: I fondly recalled, while listening to the performance, my first ever experience of a stupendously gifted woman conductor, the late Judith Somogyi, who also conducted Holländer, at Frankfurt Opera in the mid 1980s. The pit was on fire, and each singer onstage carried by her steady hands, never overwhelming the voices. The production was rather traditional, but, oh, the music...
Warner Classics has a 55 CD box Furtwangler box coming out in the next couple of months that is supposed to include all his studio recordings and commercially released live recordings. So there may be yet another attempt to remaster his Ring cycle.
@@dennismaurer9672 Oops - Dave said Furtwangler did two. I'm as far from an authority on Wagner or Furtwangler as you can get, just made the original comment to let people know another Furtwangler box is coming.
Thanks, Dave. Very judicious talk. I have, or have spent time with, all of your suggestions, apart from the Naxos one, which I am now intrigued about. Whatever the singers you have in a particular decade you have to do this work, it shows no signs of going away in opera houses anywhere, so seeing how this shapes interpretation is exactly the positive way to move forwards. I'm fond of all of your other suggestions for different reasons - the Janowski, for example, is really excellent and has a quite different "sound" than most of the others plus some great singing (Peter Schreier as Loge and Mime for example). Somehow it sounds more 19th century in pacing and delivery - I'm not really a Nilsson fan so I like Altmeyer's more youthful, lighter Brunnhilde. The Karajan is indeed a whole that is more than the sum of its parts and I wouldn't be without it (although the Bohm and Solti are certainly more exciting in key scenes). Some of the problems there have struck me as having more to do with the recording balances than the singing - for example, the forging scene in Siegfried Act 1 where Stolze is louder than Jess Thomas, or the trio in Gotterdammerung Act 2 where Ridderbusch seems relegated to the background somehow. Unlike some, I really love Fischer-Dieskau as the young Wotan. I just don't believe that Vickers and Janowitz are twins though! If I had to keep one, it'd probably be the Keilberth because of the capturing of the great voices of that time in Bayreuth in stereo, but the Solti is remarkably still an excellent top recommendation.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Lol and I'm thinking that it was always her destiny, given she was called "Gundula", to be in a heavier Wagner role than Elsa. So Kudos to Karajan for making that possible...
I appreciate Gundula Janowitz and think that her voice is truly beautiful, especially in the mid and lower registers. But I've never been able to shake the disappointment of her relatively thin sound in those wonderful, soaring lines of Sieglinde. Despite that, I prefer Karajan's Walkure to Solti's, on balance, even though Crespin is an ideal Sieglinde. BTW, keep in mind that Siegfried and Sieglinde are fraternal twins, not identical! :-)
@@dennischiapello7243 Point taken! However, taking some interest in these discussions with so many intelligent listeners I did find myself wondering whether the best way to do the Ring initially is really a sound recording. Maybe its best to actually watch it? Then get a recording. Its a supposedly "total work of art" after all, so its not quite right just to think about CDs here.
A very interesting 38 minutes and I agree with much of this. I own the Solti, Keilberth, Janowski (the Pentatone, not the earlier one), the EMI Furtwangler, the Karajan, the Fisch, and pieces of the Haitink and Levine Rings, as well as non-cycle recordings by Knappertbusch, Leinsdorf and Fjelstad. I would not be without the Karajan, although Solti would be my first choice as well. I listened to much of the Bohm when first released (a very, very long time ago) and personally found it to lack depth, something I think is generally true of Bohm's conducting -his DG Beethoven cycle is woeful to my ears. And I have never liked the "post coital" scream in Walkure. I have not heard van Zweden, but I have been fortunate enough to have attended two live Ring cycles, one just a few years ago. BTW, the old EMI Walkure Act 1 with Melchior and Lehmann is a must for any Ring collection.
I love Wagner's music, but there is definitely something about him that attracts egotistical, obsessive lunatics. From what I gather this has always been the case with the Wagner fanbase. There were street-fights in Paris between Wagnerians and anti-german french nationalists surrounding the premiere of Tannhauser if I remember correctly.
@@jacobstarling734 Martin Gregor Dellin, in his huge tome Wagner biography published in 1983 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of The Master's Death, mentions that in Paris a new verb was coined: je tannhause, tu tannause, il/elle tannhauses, nous tanhaussons, vous tanhaussez, ils/elles tannhausent...
Street fights? No, when Wagner got his Tannhäuser preformed in Paris, he obeyed local custom and put a ballet in it. Alas, he put it in Act One. Members of the Jockey Club who were more interested in shapely legs, expected those in Act Two, when they were wont to arrive... Their disappointment led to a scandal when they whipped out their whistles and started blowing them during the music.
I'm a Furtwangler fanatic but I refuse to listen to his Ring Cycle and live Bruckner recordings because the sound is just atrocious. I wish he had been born 30 years later because then at least he might have left us with recordings in decent stereo. With that said, his Beethoven is sublime and his studio recording of the Schumann 4th is electrifying. Sorry for getting off topic. Vickers and Janowitz are a match made in heaven in Karajan's Die Walkure recording. Thanks for another great talk!
I agree with the Furtwängler sound. One has to keep concentration high in order to listen to his Rings. But while the La Scala Ring is just inaudible, the Rome Ring is in fact not so terrible, still on the bad side of course. It is s pity, he is such a wonderful Wagner conductor, but his legacy is limited to this. But had he been born 30 years later he would have been a totally different conductor. It is rather fair to say: why didn't he live another 20 years? Toscanini kept conducting superbly until he was 85, Stokowsky until 90, Walter and Klemperer 87 or 88 ...
@@edwinbelete76 He was very careless about his own health. Few weeks before dying he had sore throat and cough; in these conditions he ... went for walks in a fog !!! No wonder he developed pneumonia and, with no antibiotics available yet in those days, he died of it. They tried to save him with a blood transfusion in Baden-Baden, but with no avail.
Great video, I couldn't agree more. Perhaps I'll add Van Zweden to my collection... but I'm reluctant to buy modern Wagner since Thielemann decided to try his luck in this repertoire. Keilberth and Barenboim, yes! I think Levine deserves an honourable mention: his Ring is very well recorded, very well played and quite decently sung. But for the rest I agree totally with your recommendations...
Agreed on JK, DB & especially CT. CT almost seems to set out to make everything unenjoyable right from the start. My guess is JvZ would not disappoint.
What works for me with most operas, Wagner in particular, is getting to know them first via dvd/blu ray. Once you know what's going on you can provide your own visuals to the sound-only cycle of your choice. For me, if opera was all about singing, composers wouldn't have spent so much time fussing about with their librettists which, of course, Wagner didn't do although some would say he should have. As a theatrical experience both the Boulez/Chereau and Copenhagen video Rings are very enjoyable. On cd Solti and Culshaw do a bang-up job of conveying the theatricality of the cycle and without visuals there's the definite advantage of being able to bring your own imagination to bear on underwater nymphs, giants, schlangenwurms, toads and rainbow bridges, none of which ever quite work and sometimes totally bomb on stage.
Actually, I find it more useful to sit down with the libretto and just follow it. Of course, subtitles help with DVDs, but I find most DVD productions to be so silly (when not downright ugly), the singers so unphotogenic, and their acting so pathetic, that it's much more satisfying to use my imagination once I understand what all the screaming is about. Seeing it live is another matter entirely, but to me a video of a live performance is even more artificial and "distancing" then a recording. What we really need are artfully made movies--full scale, glamorous, spare no expense films.
Kober with the Duisburger Philharmoniker is great too. Janowski with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and James Levine with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra as well.
Bravo, Dave. Your commentary made me smile. And I know where you're coming from with the choices. My first set was the Furtwangler RAI. It was on some funny label and was ludicrously cheap. The sound is shit, the orchestra [1st trumpet especially] awful etc etc. But I listened through the murk and in the end I grew to love it. Years later when the Solti was available at a reasonable price I picked it up. My expectations were sky high. I marveled at the sound, drooled at the cast but bit by bit got less and less enthusiastic. It took a long time to work it out. In the end I didn't like Solti. When I compared passages time and again what I found was that while there was more surface theatricality, often the tempi were simply too ponderous and the drama through the text simply got lost. I guess you always fall in love with the one you hear first.
Dear Mr Hurwitz, Many thanks for your regular educational and entertaining recommendations of recordings, both of the so-called 'standard repertoire' and of more esoteric but very enjoyable works. I have the complete Solti Ring on Decca and John Culshaw's 'Ring Resounding' published account of the recording sessions. With a little more free time now on my hands, I am keen to acquaint myself with The Ring but feel I need a good guide in book form. As I'm not a trained musician, I'd prefer something accessible to the ordinary listener, without too many score excerpts interspersed throughout the text but perhaps a little more expansive than the notes and expanatory CDs in the box. Although it is outside your usual remit in these videos, I wonder whether you could suggest a suitable book to ease me in to both the plots and music (or would you simply rely on the resources provided and 'dive in')? With very best wishes from Oxford, UK.
In 1957 Birgit Nilsson was Sieglinde at Bayreuth and gave a scream which I've always found to be quite thrilling. As far as I remember, the Levine Ring on CD had no scream at all which was a bit disappointing. What I would like to hear is Act 3 of Parsifal with no scream from Kundry.
My three rings are historical recordings from the 1950s. Furtwängler and La Scala, which is the weakest of the three. Keilberth 1953, released by The Intense Media at a very low price. It features Hans Hotter, Martha Mödl and Wolfgang Windgassen, among others. One of my best value for money buys ever. And the 1956 Bayreuth conducted by Hans Knappertsbusch, about the finest you can get, with Hotter, Varnay and Windsgassen. I'll have to add more to my collection, provided the price is within reach.
Hunding is not a nice guy. He treats his wife badly, oders her around. She was given to him without her consent. Also, he has been hunting Sigmund and would have killed him if he had caught him.
Solt's Ring is arguably Decca's greatest recording. Still sounds stunning after all these years and as for the Vienna Phil - just fabulous! The Naxos intrigues me though. Didn't know it existed.
@@RModillo Jess Thomas. Agreed - his voice always struck me as too refined for Siegfried, especially the boisterous young Siegfried of Part 3. Thomas was great in noble roles like Parsifal and Lohengrin, but he just didn't "click" as Siegfried.
Solti has dominated the catalog ever since it's release. It's the stereo yardstick, the recording to test your speakers on your system. I happened to catch the last 10 minutes of the Gotterdammerung on UA-cam with Barenboim and Bayreuth. If you notice after the fire scene when Brunnhilde disappears into the storm and the people come out, there are two kids (boy and girl) at the forefront. Towards the end of the act, the boy takes the girl by the hand and leads her to the side (or back) of the stage, as the curtain falls. I am so glad you mentioned Barenboim, and he is a Furtwangler type conductor for sure. Karajan's Die Walkure is special, especially with the singers you mention in that recording. Does it seem that Bohm, on the other hand, races through this cycle? Maybe it adds vitality, I don't know. Keilberth is indeed a classic recording. But I wonder if this cycle demands stereo, so I might be reluctant to hear a monoraul recording of Wagner. I guess you have to be careful of the volume setting.
I often find myself listening to the Sawallisch recording because of the nice flow and colors of the orchestra, but it has good singers too. Karajan`s is like a recording for audiophiles, like a beautiful marble statue. The best modern recording from Bayreuth is by Barenboim, I have listened to his Walküre countless times (to my mind, Graham Clarke created probably the best modern versions of Loge and Mime, truly exciting performances!) I never really liked Nilsson and Sawallisch for some reason, there seems to be no real drama in the voices. Purely musically they are wonderful no doubt.
A very entertaining and very well done Video ( I missed any reference to Hans K. Bayreuth Ring) but I need to say I didn't know anything about Bohm Post-coitus scream 🌀 I enjoyed very much watching your Video. Stay Safe and Greetings from Spain 🚩
Somewhat amazingly, I actually own all three of your recommendations! I had the good fortune to know and work with Jimmy Brown, who was one of the Decca engineers who recorded the Solti cycle. I also met John Culshaw a few times, so I have a bit of a 'vested interest' in that version!
I agree there is no Furtwangler ring with even halfway decent sound or even just good, solid orchestral playing. If anyone is curious about Furtwangler and Wagner, they should stick with the Tristan he did with the Philharmonia and the Walkure with the Vienna Philharmonic. Both were originally on EMI and were decently recorded, and both have been available from Naxos cheaply. Don't waste money on the complete ring versions - they won't sound significantly worse streamed, so you can get your Furtwangler indoctrination for free on UA-cam.
On September 24, Warner will release a 55 CD box of Furtwangler's Complete Studio recordings + those live performances that he approved for possible release. Foremost among the latter is the 1937 Ring Cycle with Flagstad and Melchior at Covent Garden (the London Philharmonic is the pit band). The entire Ring was recorded by EMI engineers (not BBC engineers), but only Act 3 of Die Walkure and two hours of Gotterdammerung survive. I'll be curious to see what the new remastering sounds like.
Anyone interested in exploring Furtwangler's Ring recordings should check out the remastering on Pristine Classical. It is hands-down the best version of these recordings. Andrew Rose is more interventionist than other vintage classical reissue labels in terms of his remastering, creating his own version of "Reprocessed for stereo", but the results are amazing. You will hear many decry what he does, but not me. Anything that makes these vintage recordings easier to listen to is doing us all big service.
Listened to it the most, but found a flaw (hopefully a newer release has ironed it out). Part of the draw of the Ring cycle was that it's one of the few works including a contra-bass trombone, which didn't disappoint. I had access to Dover scores of the Ring, so was a little surprised to hear silence from the bass clarinet for the entire cycle. The bass clarinet is noticeable in his Tristan recording, maybe made the same year. Switched temporarily to the Boulez recording and was able to hear the the bass clarinet part that way.
How'd you make Hunding out to be a good guy, he's one of the more despicable characters. His tribe ravaged and torched the Volsung village, abducting the children as slaves. The girl child Sieglinde being forced to marry Hunding.
It's understandable I suppose... But Hunding is not a good character. He married a wife against her will, a wife whose mother was murdered by Hunding's family. He is loyal to the Gods, as he understands it, so it is nasty of Wotan to kill him, but Hunding has no personal sovereignty. He is a slave to a corrupt tradition. Wotan doesn't even have to fight him and just wills him dead. He is a sad character, I suppose, but he has no soul. He is like an animal, a "Hund" who lives and dies at his master's will.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I dunno. I sometimes get a chuckle out of, " Nun, Alberich, das schlug fehl." But there are not many punchlines. And even that one is a bit sadistic. Poor Alberich!
Daniel Barenboim's 1992 Bayreuth Laser Ring on DVD is my favourite recording. Sounds incredible, with a fantastic cast, especially Anne Evans as Brunhilde. Sotli's Ring has that 1950s Alfred Hitchcock movie music sound which I find off putting and I don't like the addition of the sound effects. Also Hans Hoffer sounds like he has a cold and they should have stuck with George London from Rheingold.
Thanks for this! I really like 1956 Knappertsbusch. You are right about Stewart. George London as the Rhinegold Wotan with Solti is fabulous. Curious as to your opinion on Levine on DG?
I am going to catch so much hate for this, but I grew up with the Levine Ring, and it remains my favorite to this day. I know that people complain about the glacial tempos, but honestly, the slowness of some of the sections draws out the depth of Wagner's rich harmonies and sonorous orchestrations (I like the Fate motif and the Brünnhilde's awakening motifs, for example, to be as absolutely drawn out as possible) and also does justice to the profundity of some moments ("Ruhe, ruhe" at the end of Götterdämmerung). No, Behrens is obviously not a real Wagnerian Brünnhilde, but I find that there is an extraordinary sensitivity and character to her voice that gives the character more color than the Nillsons and Varnays of the previous generation. Reiner Goldberg is an acquired taste, but one eventually falls in love with the sound. And of course, one associates it with the Otto Schenck/Günther Schneider-Siemssen production at the Met, which remains one of the greatest opera productions in history
Fine safe & sane recommendations! People say all sorts of stupid, pretentious things about Solti's Ring conducting. I love that Ring and it holds up for me over decades like no other commercially issued cycle with ONE caveat. When I decide to play it, I like to substitute the earlier RCA/Decca Walkure, the one conducted by Leinsdorf. Walkure was the one disappointment in the Solti cycle. Georg is labored in Act 1 and Hotter really is too far gone by 1966, too woofy. London is much better, he continues his Wotan from the Rheingold, Nilsson is here, we have a young Vickers, more spontaneous than for HvK. And Leinsdorf is as exciting as Boehm. Hotter is best heard from those 50s Bayreuth cycles, including Knappertsbusch versions for that slower, more grandiose Ring with that from the bottom up saturated orchestral sound. He could get sloppy even slovenly but its still something to hear like that Decca recorded 1951 Gotterdammerung on Testament which is overwhelming.
I have (for the last few years, at least) favored Knappertsbusch when it comes to re-listening, but I'm speaking as someone who hasn't actually buckled down and listened to the entirety of Keilberth's.
I wonder whether I am the only person on earth thinking that Fischer-Dieskau (in the Karajan ring) is the most clear and intelligent voice of Wotan ever, and wondering how his Walküre Wotan would have been.
Interesting that you mentioned Jaap von Sweden's Ring as being similar to von Karajan's. Not only did von Sweden use a lieder singer (Goerne) for Wotan, so did Karajan, with Fischer-Dieskau. Something you might have mentioned in recommending the Solti Ring as the hands-down best choice for a first recording, is the whole Culshaw-Ring-Resounding-Stereo aspect, with every special effect following Wagner's specifications to a T: the full set of precisely tuned anvils, authentic alpenhorns, an enormous thunder machine, and on and on. Those might be non-musical factors, but as you point out, Wagner was a man of the theater, and he pulled out all the stops in The Ring.
I pick out parts of Solti's and Karajan's recordings. For Die Walkure, there is HVK's with Jon Vickers' glorious Sigmund and Janowitz' Sieglinde - gorgeously sung and acted, plus the loveliest Magic Fire music. For Siegfried, I turn to Solti because he captures the darkness of the opera, contrasted with a luminous final scene before and after Siegfried has woken up Brunnhilde. Also, Windgassen is superb at conveying the heroid moron that is Siegfried. For Gotterdamerung, again I go with Solti, again because he captures the dramatic and the lyrical wonderfully. Solti's inimitable intensity is very well suited for The Ring. Honorable mention: Bohm's Ring is very exciting and well worth a listen. Rysanek's famous scream when Sigmund pulls out the sword is fantastic.
My main issue with the Patrice Chereau production was that it was the first ever broadcast Ring and should have been more traditional for those who had loves the work for years. Instead of the magical, legend, he gave us modern drek.
David, would you like to say something about the EMI Goodall Ring, in English? Even if only as a warning? Reginald does have his cult following especially among Brit critics. Tempi beyond slooooow. (I call it the Badall Ring though I admire Rita Hunter and Norman Bailey.)
Deadly, but it does have some great singing. Goodall was, with the exception of his Tristan, pretty horrible. There, I've said it. Then there's the English translation, like when Sieglinde discovers she is pregnant and she rapturously praises Brunnhilde with the words, 'Oh, you radiant housewife!"
@@hmhparis1904 Parsifal can take to very slow tempi handily but the recorded cast isn't great. Toscanini's Bayreuth Parsifal was the slowest ever, at least the first performance. Love Knappertsbusch and even Levine.
@DJ Quinn LOL, It may be the only Rheingold ever to have been issued on 4 lps (!) and 3 CDs with the predictable exception of Levine's. Kna's expansive 1951 cycle (Testament issued the majestic Recca-recorded Gotterdammerung from the cycle) was 162' but that was a bit unusual for him. Richter, the first 1876 conductor came in at 150'-151'.
@@andrewclarke6899 Bumbry's casting was a welcome breakthrough and Wieland deserves kudos for it. Goodall's horrible NSDAP sympathies were appalling, I was disgusted when I read about him, but it didn't influence my feelings about his Ring because that had already repelled me. ;)
Hi David, I have just discovered your channel and would like to say how much I have enjoyed what I've seen and heard so far. In 2004 I attended the State Opera production of the full cycle in Adelaide, South Australia as conducted by Asher Fisch. The whole endeavor was recorded and released on the Melba Label on SACD Hybrid CDs. The production was engineered by the same people who were later responsible for the marvelous recent Naxos Hong Kong edition. Have you heard it? The Walkure in particular is excellent.
I have just started listening and viewing the Opera North staged concert performance, courtesy BBC, 2017, via UA-cam - I have some reasonable quality Audioengine speakers, and my ears at age 75 are too old to worry about hifi frequencies above 8k. . I've never heard any of the Ring Cycle previously, so as to the quality of the singing and orchestra compared to the CDs boxes discussed, I am not qualified to comment, but as a gentle introduction to the music with subtitles and no distracting "stage business", just some appropriate and imaginative visual effects, I shall see how things go. I see that the English National Opera are undertaking a new Ring Cycle, which I presume will be sung in English. As I live in NZ, I'm unlikely to be able to see this in person, but I hope that the Cycle will be recorded.
One cannot even make an intelligent decision as to which Ring is the best Ring until one has worn at least one ring on each finger, simultaneously, meaning having listened through at the very least 10 Ring performances successfully, before having the basis with which to make up one's intelligent decision. Mr Hurwitz has. Yep, the rings convoluted plot is that deep,. and the recordings available are that numerous, which disqualifies any judgment until one has gone through at least 10 hoops Myself? The favorite is Solti. I have ,Bohm. I have Levine. I have one of the two Furtwangler's. I have Barenboim-underwhelming, especially when compared with solti's Ring. I have the deluxe version of Marek Janoski-seriously infrequently played. I have Swarovski and Thielmann on MP3, the latter likewise underwhelming; meaning that I still have two, or three fingers yet to cover, likely best done with the von Karajan; sadly an unfortunately with a price being found still well above and beyond my pay grade; and the Knappertbusch. The legendary Keilberth Bayreuth performance is also likewise far and above my pay grade. Many thanks, David, for the video.
I find Wagner really tough. He was amazing, a genius. I love his music but he was also a vile pre-Nazi political inspiration of Hitler. I love his music but it teaches you a bit about separating the music from the person. Jackson, the frontman from The Lost Prophets, Glitter. You have to separate the music from the monster. I'm happy to be seen wrong, in my opinion. The thing about opinions is that you are entitled to them and others welcome to oppose them. The trouble is that the internet doesn't seem to realise this.
As a Wagnerite, a crazy person - I can't comment, but will just say thanks for the video.
Hojotoho, indeed!
Wise way to avoid David's censorious fingertips.
Haha, likewise.
Me too!
Owners of the Solti version really need to get John Culshaw's book "Ring Resounding" about the production of that justifiably famous set. Terrific read. But for headphone listening, Karajan's is the easiest of the ears IMO.
It is a pity that when he wrote the book, Culshaw did not know that Ernst Kozub was in precarious health and may well have decided that he needed to try to make as much as he could while he still could, even in the knowledge that he might not be able to fulfil engagements. I don't know if Jon Vickers was approached but he would never have worked with Solti after the Covent Garden debacle.
When I bought my first Solti Ring, it was on LP and a set of books, including Culshaw's "Ring Resounding" was included. Great insights to the challenges of recording the work. I loved the Solti so much, that I bought the identical set when it came out on CD. The only other Ring I have is Levine and the Met on DVD, since it was one of the few "traditional" stagings available on DVD. I did not want to buy a version that would be of the moment and outdated before the Rhine washed over Hagen.
@@Horichdaslicht1858 In other words, Kozub was "our Siegfried"? Not named in the book.
@@Rozsaphile Yes.
@@Rozsaphile Culshaw named Kozub in his (uncompleted) memoirs.
What a pity you wouldn't give us your favourite and the objective best 2nd Norn ... so disappointing! 🤣
I was from Hong Kong (I immigrated to the States 28 years ago). I listened to Hong Kong Philharmonic growing up. This Ring recording is the best I have ever heard from my home town orchestra. It completely changed my opinion towards them. After the pandemic I hope I will get a chance to listen to them live again
Oh no I would never ever expected the Hong Kong Philharmonic to be featured in the list of David Hurwitz’s list of the Ring recordings to go for, together with the titans like Solti, Keilberth and Karajan etc!!! As a HKer I am ashamed to not giving enough attention to my hometown orchestra. Now I must rush out and get this recording, fast!
The 1955 Keilberth is my favorite Ring overall. I know the Solti is more technically perfect, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn the work from it, but the Keilberth offers an amazing sonic window into what was surely one of Bayreuth's greatest decades.
Great set, and Keilberth's 1953 set is even greater for the singing, but alas, it's not in stereo.
Hands down, Solti has the best anvil chorus (in Rheingold), the best collapse of Valhalla and alphorns (Götterdämmerung). Oh, and the music is pretty good, too.
Solti's steer-horns sound so "right" for Hagen, I'm surprised that other recordings/productions haven't followed suit.
I think musically, Solti’s Valhalla collapse is great, but I’d like it a hell of a lot better without the burning sound effects when Brünnhilde jumps into the pyre.
@@charlescoleman5509 I like the sound effects, it makes you feel like you are watching it on stage, rather than just listening to it.
Wagner is meant to be watched, not just listened to but sadly, every stage director today thinks otherwise! 🤮
@@mogmason6920 Sure, Wagner operas, like all operas, are meant to be watched. But Wagner has taken care of the dramatic things than happen via his score. You hardly need any cheap audio effects to enhance the amazing music that accentuates the story to begin with.
@@ftumschk Don't be surprised. John Culshaw had to have the steerhorns made for the Decca recording! Even then, orchestras simply substituted trombones. However, a good lead nowadays might be the producers of those ads for Ricola cough drops!
There are two Sieglinde screams in Böhm. End of Act 1 scream of ecstasy and end of Act 2 scream of sorrow. She also ends in a vocal volcanic eruption of hope in Act 3. Rysanek was truly an exceptional singer.
I enjoyed Dave's retelling of Leonie Rysanek's scream. However, one fine evening at the Met Jon Vickers pulled and pulled, yet Notung wouldn't budge. And then finally out it came in pieces, with something flying into the orchestra pit while another fragment just missed Sieglinde's head. The performance was unusual in that Birgit Nilsson was singing the role of Sieglinde, not Brunnhilde. Well, Nilsson let out a shriek, but it was a shriek of terror, not of joy. Many in the audience, including myself, cracked up in hysterics. This greatest singers also had a keen sense of humor and was really fast on her feet.
Nice reviews, Dave.. Loved Wagner since I saw Nilssson at the Met in the early 60s (in Gotterdammerung, she had a live, four-legged Grane--who nuzzled her). It's a shame that toda,y no one dare utter the name of James Levine who was a master Wagner conducter. Levine, along with Barenboim, were my favorites. I hold a special affection for Barenboim, however. He seems to me to be able to extract the marrow from Wagner's sensibilies better than anyone; I feel it all the way down to my bones. His closing of Gotterdamerung (I beleive it's on his "Cycle" recording) is breathtaking. He summoned his"Barenboim horns" to great dramatic effect.
Notwithstanding his deserved moral reckoning, Levine as a Wagner conductor can hardly hold a candle to Solti, Karajan, Bohm, Furtwangler, Barenboim, and Thielemann, among many others. Slow labored interpretations lacking a coherent structure.
@@NYCOPERAFAN Never experienced that but I don't have your speakers. 🤣
If we are cancelling Levine, shouldn't we also cancel Furtwängler for literally being the leading conductor in Germany under the nazis?
On the subtopic of Hans Hotter, in the late 1970s I got to hear the elderly Hans Hotter leading a master class in voice at the San Francisco Conservatory. Once or twice he illustrated how a phrase just sung by a student could go better, treating all around to that familiar woolly, wobbly but oracular Wotan-like voice (he must have been eighty-ish at the time). I stood probably only three or four feet behind him. I stayed a few minutes then slunk out, probably thinking (foolishly) this was an event best left to the singers.
As a Wagnerite, a Knappertsbuschite, and a dedicated third nornist, I endorse this video.
[edit] now that I've finished watching the video - what an awesome, thoughtful, and straightforward video :) good job!
My favourite example of Karajan’s idiosyncratic casting is that he auditioned Alfred Deller’s son Mark for the role of Erda.
That is delicious to contemplate!
Erda sung by a COUNTERTENOR? I don't think Wagner would have approved.
I have in my collection: Boehm, Keilberth, Solti, Karajan, Furtwaengler '50 and '53, Krauss, Knappertsbusch '57 and '58. If I had to choose two, it would be the historic Keilberth and Stereo "in Bayreuth", Boehm!!
Great choice on the HKPhil Ring set. I attended some of these live concerts. Thrilling experience despite it’s not fully staged plays. Can’t forget that leb wohl delivered by Goerne, kept listening to this piece today. Dilemma of the Wagner Ring - the recording is getting better yet the singers are getting worse.
I am on the floor laughing. Great review, David. Excellent reviews. And your synopses of the various Wagner camps were spot on (and hilarious). My favorite three are Solti, Karajan, and Bohm--all have flaws, I love 'em all. For me they helped me gain an appreciation not just for Wagner, but how a conductor's vision shapes the performance.
I own the Karajan (as an orchestral musician, I love it over all others), and know the Solti, Boulez and Barenboim very well. I couldn’t agree with you more. Very fair critiques . Your comments are spot on! I must hear the Böhm… exciting and raw? Böhm? Who knew? 😂 Thanks again, David.
It is really very good Jack. Much as I have issues about Bohm as a human being he could be very exciting. Yes his Ring is a bit rough sometimes orchestrally (close miking of brass etc) but it is terrifically exciting, try Gotterdammerung Act 2! But similarly he was very exciting in Strauss and Berg.
What do you think of Boulez's Ring? David never talked about it.
@@ericc8269 Actually he does, if only for a good bit less than a minute: see 3:30.
For me, the problem with the Solti cycle is Solti himself. He's great in the dramatic and hard-hitting moments, but his foot is still on the accelerator in the spiritual and more tender or heart-wrenching passages. In comparison, even Karajan sounds more spiritual.
I can't understand Wagner nuts who must hear every Wagner recording. Whenever I re-listen to my 10 least favorite Ring Cycles, just to remind myself why they're so bad, I always vow to myself never to listen to them again for at least the following 3 months.
Hehreste Wonne...:-)
Wait, you own 10 least favorite Ring Cycles?
Much enjoyed your exploration of 'Ring' recordings - my own journey with this most amazing of works of art started in the late 70s when BBC Tv broadcast the whole Boulez Ring in acts on consecutive Sunday evenings...and I was hooked! I then started to explore those recordings then available, as well as reading as much literature on the subject (a lot!). First came a Ring you didn't mention: EMI's Goodall/English National Opera, recorded live in Coliseum, London. I started with that as I saw live this Valkyrie (I later saw the WNO Ring, also in English, with Anne Evans who was in the Barenboim Ring at Bayreuth) and was bowled over by both cast and conducting. But very soon I wanted a set in German, so home came the Solti...and a lifelong love affair with this amazing recording - so much so that I read the producer, John Culshaw's 'Ring Resounding' and decided I must visit the Sofiensäle in Vienna to see where this legendary recording (and many other Decca recordings) were made....I achieved this ambition only 5 years ago - the Sofiensäle now restored after the disastrous fire.
For live I have Böhm and the '55 Keilberth.....BTW Culshaw discusses the Keilberth in the above book as he was present when it was recorded - he also greatly disparages Böhm's...perhaps on the grounds that he didn't record it!
I have most of the other 'studio' Rings you mention, but none tops the Solti.....Oh, I think the DVDs of the Levine/Met Ring might be a pretty good starting point for the novice, with it's 'traditional' staging.
This past year, my professor of Aesthetics of Music at the Superior Conservatory of Music of Valencia, said in full class and without blushing, that listening to Wagner is unbearable and boring, but yes, that I open my mind to tribal music indigenous and urban music and that I was not so closed in music, because I replied that for me these last two were not art. For me, this little woman has never heard an opera, from whoever she is, in her life. And a concert or symphony I don't think either. This is the level of many teachers in higher centers in Spain.
oy vey! That's more than frightening.
Wagner bad, Rap good!
On a serious note, this reminds of a friend who described Beethoven as a “Robot” rather than a musician, because his music is written down rather than spread aurally.
He listens to nothing but Reggaeton btw! All of which sounds the same! 😂😂😂
Saying that indigenous music and rap is not art is also a perspective that betrays a lack of actual cultural comprehension. When an artist strives for perfection it is satisfying and when an artist doesn't strive for perfection the art form becomes a caricature of itself, be it urban music, tribal music, or classical music (especially Opera). It is interesting that Leo Tolstoy wrote a book called "What is Art?" where he really ponders on the excesses of classical music in his time and praises the purity of expression in folk art. That is very understandable and there are many great composers who studied, borrowed and collected folk melodies because the absence of pretentiousness in those melodies made them more powerful. Any great composer that has spent time in Spain has appreciated the abundance of indigenous melodies and rhythms available there. No?
This is the attitude of the "woke" movement in America as well. Anything from the West must necessarily be bad because it was created by white oppressors.
I've gotten to slightly prefer Varnay to Nilsson's Brunnhilde interperatively. When my VHS tapes of the Levine/Met/Otto Schenk production died, I got a DVD set of Barenboim's Ring and it's marvelous as well! More modern, more interesting, but not crazy. great chat!
Thanks for the video!! I am wondering how Rudolf Kempe's cycles sound. I found two sets on the market - Bayreuth 61 and Covent Garden 57. I regard many of Kempe's recordings as reference-level, so I'm very curious.
No matter which is your favorite, I claim special consideration for the Solti (sort of like a "Lifetime Achievement Award). I believe it was the first one issued commercially, it put Wagner on the map, put Nilsson on the map, put the VPO on the map, put Culshaw on the map, put Decca/London on the map, etc. Even if it's not your favorite, the interest generated by the Solti ring (IMO) helped greatly in selling future issues (whether originally recorded before or after the Solti).
I was all geared up to be a contrarian but I must say I pretty much agree with all of this. I think the ‘53 Krauss has to be the most theatrical version on disc (Alberich’s curse in Rheingold still chills me). But I do find myself grimacing a lot more at the Solti these days and pushing it further to the bottom of the pile now there are so many other splendid recordings.
I hate the Solti. Krauss, Keilberth, Karajan, Janowski... - all better.
I have the complete Solti set on vinyl now...I change the LPs more often than my underwear. Ummm......yeah. But there is something special and amazing about this recording on vinyl.
Same here!🤣
My first Ring was Solti's and I think I made good choice with that. I love the Ring, it is one of my greatest artistic experience. I was Furtwängler fanatic years ago and I bought the La Scala Ring too in French Furtwängler Society remaster. I think that version has an acceptable sound and quite balanced regards to the orchestra and singers. (I can't stand with recordings where singers are sings into my face but orchestra sounds far away behind them. I want to hear the orchestral performance too.)
So I like Furtwängler's version also because now I am quite familiar with the Ring. But the worst thing in that for me is the ending of Die Walküre and the Götter. That stupid audience can't wait for the end and start clapping while the beautiful ending chords are still played. That is very annoying for me.
I listened to excerpts from Keilberth's Ring on youtube but the sound is ruined by that very harsh brass sound. I like when brass sounds are played loud but in that case it sounds like the microphones are placed into the horn of the brass instruments. When brasses are playing, they suppress everything else on that recording.
@@orientaldagger6920 Thank you for the reply! I didn't buy another Ring cycle since than. Orchestral performance is important for me (maybe more important than singing). In the meantime I decided that if I will buy another Ring that will be Karajan's. But not now.
Such a nice and passionate video of the Opus Magnum by the greatest composer ever!
My favorite (as a native German):
Clemens Krauss 1953 live recording from Bayreuther Festspiele.
Never heard anything better!
Um, OK, but spare us that "greatest composer ever" nonsense.
I don’t know if the Krauss is the best overall Ring, but it’s the best Siegfried.
I wouldn't call myself a historical recording nut (all-in-all I prefer Janowski's Dresden Ring with its crystal clear leitmotivs), but for those who are not averse to somewhat older sonics, I can really recommend the (uncut and very decently recorded) 1949 Vienna Rudolf Moralt Ring. It features the older generation of prewar singers and offers a glimpse of how Wagner must have sounded to the ears of interbellum composers like Berg, Schoenberg, Strauss, etc. And it's so well sung/enunciated that for those who understand German, you can follow the text without the libretto.
Thanks for the suggestion
1949 and 1953 Krauss is not too far away tho. Might as well recommend the 1928 Parsifal and Siegfried Wagner early Bayreuth singers to hear what Wagner would have had which is more convincing
Excellent discussion. Thank you!
One question: where, oh, where can I get that fabulous shirt?! "Abnormal is fine. Stupid is not"? That's perfect! I love it!
We will have an e-commerce portal up in the next few weeks (a month or two?). Hang in there!
@@DavesClassicalGuide Fantastic! Thank you!
Thank you for a very informative video. I’m pleased that you highlighted the Naxos Ring as I bought that years ago as individual releases as they were issued. I always thought highly of them but they were rarely mentioned in reviews, so I’m happy that you thought so highly of them.
Thank Bob Levine, ClassicsToday's opera critic who has the finest ear in the business, and absolutely no prejudice where quality is concerned. He's taught me more than I can begin to express.
Before the Hurwitz Effect takes over: the Keilberth set is available a LOT cheaper from Berkshire Record Outlet than from Amazon.
“Cultists are nuts”. 😂😂😂😂. Couldn’t agree more. Grew up with the Solti Ring which has spoilt me for any others. The dream cast cannot be even closely matched today and Culshaw’s production/engineering is legendary.
I prefer my Wagner on video--you really need to see the staging of the opera in order to get the full effect. I like my Wagner to be as close to a movie as possible. However I just broke my own rule 2 weeks ago and bought the Naxos Hong Kong Philharmonic Wagner Ring becuase i had read so much about its quality and so far it's only on cd (as far as I know).
So far I'm liking what I hear in this new Ring. Is it the best Ring ever? no--you can get much better historical productions.For example the Kupfer-Barenboim Bayreuth Ring is still one of the best of all time both in staging and in sound. The Barcelona Ring staging was as close to modern Star Wars as you could get--very entertaining to watch on video. However I will say that the Hong Kong Ring in my opinion is the best sounding Ring of the contemporary era (last 15-20 years or so) Your mileage may vary--i know many that say the modern Lepage Metropolitan Opera from several years ago is the best sung of the contemporary era, but i think the Hong Kong sounds better. The orchestra especially sounds wonderful. I agree with Dave you cant go wrong by buying it. It's worth your money.
Thanks Dave for the interesting choice, and as a Wagner and opera cookie I agree with almost everything. Indeed I find myself agreeing with you on many of your reviews. I might however prefer some of the individual operas in isolated recordings (like Furtwangler's studio Walkure, or Leinsdorf's Walkure with G London as Wotan, or that incredibly intense and black granite Gotterdammerung recorded live in Oslo with the 62 year old Flagstad) What's your opinion on my theory that Wagner is not a passion, it's a disease?
I have never actually heard this piece at all. I loved this review and I will now be checking out this work. :-) Thanks for another great video.
I hope you've heard this by now. First time I ever heard the ring, I thought it was terrible music. Years later, I heard it again, and my life changed. Overall, I prefer the Boulez.
I always thought the Wagnerites and the Brucknerites were the same people but maybe I'm not paying enough attention
Now this is too much, Dave! I'm going to unsubscribe here and now. You failed to mention the legendary 1987 mono remaster of the 1956 bootleg of the two last acts of "Die Walküre" from the Ostwestfälisches Landestheater Bad Schuychsenhausen, where an indisposed Kna was at the very last minute replaced by Karl Anselm Müller-Brachtenhoeck. You clearly have NO IDEA of Wagner, and no authority whatsoever to pronounce yourself on such hallowed subjects!
Was that the one with stage direction by Wieland-Diehl Wagner and sets painted by A. Schickelgruber?
@@marknewkirk4322 that's the one! The one with Heldegunde Förster-Nietzsche as Roßweiße! Who could forget her!
Mea maxima culpa!
@@FlaneurSolitaire Also, you can’t forget the great Dramatic Contralto that is Anja-Mathilde von Fliegenspiegel as Schwertleite either!
Agreed. The swanee whistles in the "Todesvderkündigung" scene have never sounded better.
I prefer to be called a Wagnerian, Wagnerite sounds like a disease. And, I'm also a Ring-head.
My Ring recordings go back to the 1930’s Potted ring on HMV Black Label, ( Pearl reissue on CD and Original 78 rpm-records)the conducting being shared between Albert Coates, Leo Blech, and Heger? The La Scala Ring is ok if you get a cleaned up version of it. It has more fire than the Rome Ring. As far as “Modern” Cycles are concerned I’ve always had a great love for the 1966 Bohm Cycle ( I’ve owned this on Vinyl and now have it on CD) I prefer the Solti Cycle to the Karajan Cycle. I also rather like the ENO recording in English under Goodall. I’m a great Rita Hunter fan.
I own both the Karajan and the original Solti with the Culshaw hard bound book on LP, that is a story in itself as I found the Solti box set sealed, unopened at a record dealer where I normally would purchase rock, jazz more contemporary music. I came in to pickup an order and as I left I couldn't believe my eyes, the box set sitting on a shelf. It just came in from a larger purchase the store made. Prior to that, I've seen three sets; one loaned to me and two others for sale that were in terrible shape. Sometimes things just fall into your lap. Have you ever heard the Esoteric Audio reissue on SACD(ESSD-90021~34) of the Solti? I understand that it's the best sounding set out there but perusing eBay they go for thousands of dollars.
A very interesting video! I just listened to The Ring Cycle for the first time, and I'm very much interested in listening to it again, and in other versions. Out of personal curiosity, how do people tend to feel about Swarowsky's Ring? I found the entire recording in my local library, and I thought it was very good. Though I'm not familiar with opera or Wagner, so what do I know? Very informative video!
My discovery of the ring was through the Karajan version, and I must say that to this day, after many more Rings, Gundula Janowitz remains the ideal Sieglinde for me. What she does with the O hehrstes Wunder in the third act is just amazing and since then, every time I hear it elsewhere, I can't help but be a little disappointed....
Hey dave, great video, but I have to mention that today we don’t have opera singers. Everyone today is a fake singer with 0 technique and 0 ability. In every possible aspect.
I wish I'd have watched this before beginning my Wagner journey. Having bought the Furtwängler La Scala recording on vinyl, I can confirm the sound is trash 😅
I am currently at the Bayreuth Festival and heard an absolute horrible Walküre and a really mediocre Tannhäuser. And you are absolutely right. The people here are just mental….😂But it is to some degree quiet funny.
I've listened to excerpts of Walküre, and wasn't impressed. I saw Klaus Florian Vogt's Lohengrin at Bayreuth in 2015, and his light voice was fine; it vaguely reminded me of Jess Thomas, in fact, and that's no bad thing. However, Vogt just doesn't cut it as Siegmund, which is almost a high baritone role. What a shame!
@@ftumschk Sadly Vogt wasn‘t the problem on that evening. Of course he has not the typical voice for Siegmund but he was better than expectet, because his voice became slightly darker compared to earlier in his career. But still not suiting for the role. The conducting was the main problem… Absolutely uninteresting, dull, slow and unexciting. There is a live stream on youtube from the opening night of the Walküre (the performance which I saw) and it sounds better and livlier compared to what I heard. I saw the last Walküre from the Castdorf-Ring in 2017, conducted by Janowski, which was a stunning and exciting performance. He was so much more exciting than on his digital recording and of course 100 times better than Inkinen now. I had a discussion with a friend of mine, who visits Bayreuth regularly since 1966. He heard great performances with Böhm, Nilsson, Windgassen etc. and I asked him, why the musical quality is very variable these days. He said, that for most conductors at that time, Bayreuth was the summit of a long successfull career. Today they invite rather young, unexperienced people, like Inkinen, who are at the beginning of a career. Of course the situation in the Bayreuth orchestra pit was always difficult and big conductors, like Solti, failed. But when you are young, unexperienced and you have to face the difficult aspects of that pit, it can end like it ended with Inkinen. And of course there were conductors who were pretty young and successfull when they conducted the first time in Bayreuth, like Sawallisch who was in his thirties. But that is rather special and not normal. You never know what you get in Bayreuth.
@@philippborghesi1060 I saw the Castorf Ring in annual increments from 2013 onwards, and had enjoyed Petrenko in the first three operas. I was initially disappointed when he dropped out in 2016 (I think it was because he'd been given the Berlin PO job), but thrilled when it was announced that Marek Janowski would be taking over in his place. Having long been a fan of Janowski's Eurodisc Ring Cycle, I was delighted to get the chance to hear him conduct a Ring opera live. Like you say, you never know what to expect at Bayreuth - and, in this instance, it was a very welcome bonus :)
@@philippborghesi1060 Oksana Lyniv made a stunning debut conducting Holländer, in my opinion. At least that is what I say after having listened to the stream provided by Bavarian Radio (Bayern Klassik).
BTW: I fondly recalled, while listening to the performance, my first ever experience of a stupendously gifted woman conductor, the late Judith Somogyi, who also conducted Holländer, at Frankfurt Opera in the mid 1980s. The pit was on fire, and each singer onstage carried by her steady hands, never overwhelming the voices. The production was rather traditional, but, oh, the music...
Thanks for the report!
Warner Classics has a 55 CD box Furtwangler box coming out in the next couple of months that is supposed to include all his studio recordings and commercially released live recordings. So there may be yet another attempt to remaster his Ring cycle.
The furtwangler box will not have rai ring; never was meant for commercial release
@@dennismaurer9672 But it should have the EMI Ring. Edit - I see from John Fowler's comment that not all of it survives.
@@Don-md6wn same recording
@@dennismaurer9672 Oops - Dave said Furtwangler did two. I'm as far from an authority on Wagner or Furtwangler as you can get, just made the original comment to let people know another Furtwangler box is coming.
The Dresden Ring has become a favorite. Youthfulness of the singers is a good thing.
Thanks, Dave. Very judicious talk. I have, or have spent time with, all of your suggestions, apart from the Naxos one, which I am now intrigued about. Whatever the singers you have in a particular decade you have to do this work, it shows no signs of going away in opera houses anywhere, so seeing how this shapes interpretation is exactly the positive way to move forwards. I'm fond of all of your other suggestions for different reasons - the Janowski, for example, is really excellent and has a quite different "sound" than most of the others plus some great singing (Peter Schreier as Loge and Mime for example). Somehow it sounds more 19th century in pacing and delivery - I'm not really a Nilsson fan so I like Altmeyer's more youthful, lighter Brunnhilde. The Karajan is indeed a whole that is more than the sum of its parts and I wouldn't be without it (although the Bohm and Solti are certainly more exciting in key scenes). Some of the problems there have struck me as having more to do with the recording balances than the singing - for example, the forging scene in Siegfried Act 1 where Stolze is louder than Jess Thomas, or the trio in Gotterdammerung Act 2 where Ridderbusch seems relegated to the background somehow. Unlike some, I really love Fischer-Dieskau as the young Wotan. I just don't believe that Vickers and Janowitz are twins though!
If I had to keep one, it'd probably be the Keilberth because of the capturing of the great voices of that time in Bayreuth in stereo, but the Solti is remarkably still an excellent top recommendation.
Yes, Janowitz had more hair on her chest.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Lol and I'm thinking that it was always her destiny, given she was called "Gundula", to be in a heavier Wagner role than Elsa. So Kudos to Karajan for making that possible...
I appreciate Gundula Janowitz and think that her voice is truly beautiful, especially in the mid and lower registers. But I've never been able to shake the disappointment of her relatively thin sound in those wonderful, soaring lines of Sieglinde. Despite that, I prefer Karajan's Walkure to Solti's, on balance, even though Crespin is an ideal Sieglinde. BTW, keep in mind that Siegfried and Sieglinde are fraternal twins, not identical! :-)
@@dennischiapello7243 Point taken! However, taking some interest in these discussions with so many intelligent listeners I did find myself wondering whether the best way to do the Ring initially is really a sound recording. Maybe its best to actually watch it? Then get a recording. Its a supposedly "total work of art" after all, so its not quite right just to think about CDs here.
A very interesting 38 minutes and I agree with much of this. I own the Solti, Keilberth, Janowski (the Pentatone, not the earlier one), the EMI Furtwangler, the Karajan, the Fisch, and pieces of the Haitink and Levine Rings, as well as non-cycle recordings by Knappertbusch, Leinsdorf and Fjelstad. I would not be without the Karajan, although Solti would be my first choice as well. I listened to much of the Bohm when first released (a very, very long time ago) and personally found it to lack depth, something I think is generally true of Bohm's conducting -his DG Beethoven cycle is woeful to my ears. And I have never liked the "post coital" scream in Walkure. I have not heard van Zweden, but I have been fortunate enough to have attended two live Ring cycles, one just a few years ago. BTW, the old EMI Walkure Act 1 with Melchior and Lehmann is a must for any Ring collection.
Keilberth is a revelation
This imperfect Wagnerite loves your work and this video! And, I am not crazy, my therapist says so!
I love Wagner's music, but there is definitely something about him that attracts egotistical, obsessive lunatics. From what I gather this has always been the case with the Wagner fanbase. There were street-fights in Paris between Wagnerians and anti-german french nationalists surrounding the premiere of Tannhauser if I remember correctly.
You mean you were actually there?
@@DavesClassicalGuide yeah I was a young man back then. Good times
@@jacobstarling734 Martin Gregor Dellin, in his huge tome Wagner biography published in 1983 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of The Master's Death, mentions that in Paris a new verb was coined: je tannhause, tu tannause, il/elle tannhauses, nous tanhaussons, vous tanhaussez, ils/elles tannhausent...
@@DavesClassicalGuide LOL :)
Street fights? No, when Wagner got his Tannhäuser preformed in Paris, he obeyed local custom and put a ballet in it. Alas, he put it in Act One. Members of the Jockey Club who were more interested in shapely legs, expected those in Act Two, when they were wont to arrive... Their disappointment led to a scandal when they whipped out their whistles and started blowing them during the music.
I'm a Furtwangler fanatic but I refuse to listen to his Ring Cycle and live Bruckner recordings because the sound is just atrocious. I wish he had been born 30 years later because then at least he might have left us with recordings in decent stereo. With that said, his Beethoven is sublime and his studio recording of the Schumann 4th is electrifying. Sorry for getting off topic. Vickers and Janowitz are a match made in heaven in Karajan's Die Walkure recording. Thanks for another great talk!
I agree with the Furtwängler sound. One has to keep concentration high in order to listen to his Rings. But while the La Scala Ring is just inaudible, the Rome Ring is in fact not so terrible, still on the bad side of course. It is s pity, he is such a wonderful Wagner conductor, but his legacy is limited to this. But had he been born 30 years later he would have been a totally different conductor. It is rather fair to say: why didn't he live another 20 years? Toscanini kept conducting superbly until he was 85, Stokowsky until 90, Walter and Klemperer 87 or 88 ...
Furtwängler did only one brilliant live recording at Bayreuth and it was Beethoven’s Ninth of all things!
@@luciodemeio1 Listen to his Die Walkure with the Vienna Philharmonic recorded in the mid 50s.
@@luciodemeio1 I believe it was pneumonia that did him in when he was 68.
@@edwinbelete76 He was very careless about his own health. Few weeks before dying he had sore throat and cough; in these conditions he ... went for walks in a fog !!! No wonder he developed pneumonia and, with no antibiotics available yet in those days, he died of it. They tried to save him with a blood transfusion in Baden-Baden, but with no avail.
Great video, I couldn't agree more. Perhaps I'll add Van Zweden to my collection... but I'm reluctant to buy modern Wagner since Thielemann decided to try his luck in this repertoire. Keilberth and Barenboim, yes! I think Levine deserves an honourable mention: his Ring is very well recorded, very well played and quite decently sung. But for the rest I agree totally with your recommendations...
Agreed on JK, DB & especially CT. CT almost seems to set out to make everything unenjoyable right from the start. My guess is JvZ would not disappoint.
What works for me with most operas, Wagner in particular, is getting to know them first via dvd/blu ray. Once you know what's going on you can provide your own visuals to the sound-only cycle of your choice. For me, if opera was all about singing, composers wouldn't have spent so much time fussing about with their librettists which, of course, Wagner didn't do although some would say he should have. As a theatrical experience both the Boulez/Chereau and Copenhagen video Rings are very enjoyable. On cd Solti and Culshaw do a bang-up job of conveying the theatricality of the cycle and without visuals there's the definite advantage of being able to bring your own imagination to bear on underwater nymphs, giants, schlangenwurms, toads and rainbow bridges, none of which ever quite work and sometimes totally bomb on stage.
Actually, I find it more useful to sit down with the libretto and just follow it. Of course, subtitles help with DVDs, but I find most DVD productions to be so silly (when not downright ugly), the singers so unphotogenic, and their acting so pathetic, that it's much more satisfying to use my imagination once I understand what all the screaming is about. Seeing it live is another matter entirely, but to me a video of a live performance is even more artificial and "distancing" then a recording. What we really need are artfully made movies--full scale, glamorous, spare no expense films.
Satan just told James Levine that his Ring was not included. 😈
Yes I did. He was most distraught.
I own 15 Ring Cycles on CD and my top three would be in line with Dave’s:
• Solti
• Bohm
• Keilberth 1955
I love your cheeky ‘Get Solti’, which I heard as a paraphrase on ‘Get Shorty’ 😉
Kober with the Duisburger Philharmoniker is great too. Janowski with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and James Levine with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra as well.
Bravo, Dave. Your commentary made me smile. And I know where you're coming from with the choices.
My first set was the Furtwangler RAI. It was on some funny label and was ludicrously cheap. The sound is shit, the orchestra [1st trumpet especially] awful etc etc. But I listened through the murk and in the end I grew to love it. Years later when the Solti was available at a reasonable price I picked it up. My expectations were sky high. I marveled at the sound, drooled at the cast but bit by bit got less and less enthusiastic. It took a long time to work it out. In the end I didn't like Solti. When I compared passages time and again what I found was that while there was more surface theatricality, often the tempi were simply too ponderous and the drama through the text simply got lost. I guess you always fall in love with the one you hear first.
Actually, Dave, the best Ring cycle ever would be Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd on Warner. ;)
I only own the Solti and I've never felt the need for any other. However, I might buy the latest remastering of it as I note its available on SACD
Upvoted for comparing Wagner to a particular heinous recent president.
Although really, Wotan by comparison is Francis of Assisi.
Curious. I didn't hear any mention of Obama.
Ok now go to Parsifal.
Dear Mr Hurwitz, Many thanks for your regular educational and entertaining recommendations of recordings, both of the so-called 'standard repertoire' and of more esoteric but very enjoyable works. I have the complete Solti Ring on Decca and John Culshaw's 'Ring Resounding' published account of the recording sessions. With a little more free time now on my hands, I am keen to acquaint myself with The Ring but feel I need a good guide in book form. As I'm not a trained musician, I'd prefer something accessible to the ordinary listener, without too many score excerpts interspersed throughout the text but perhaps a little more expansive than the notes and expanatory CDs in the box. Although it is outside your usual remit in these videos, I wonder whether you could suggest a suitable book to ease me in to both the plots and music (or would you simply rely on the resources provided and 'dive in')? With very best wishes from Oxford, UK.
Dive in. The time you spend reading could be much better spent listening. The music itself educates you.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Many thanks for your most kind advice, which I shall take without further delay. Solti et al., here I come! 🙂
In 1957 Birgit Nilsson was Sieglinde at Bayreuth and gave a scream which I've always found to be quite thrilling. As far as I remember, the Levine Ring on CD had no scream at all which was a bit disappointing. What I would like to hear is Act 3 of Parsifal with no scream from Kundry.
Later on, Rysanek became known for the ‘Sieglinde scream’.
"Wagner was the Donald Trump of opera"!!! Wonderful!
My three rings are historical recordings from the 1950s. Furtwängler and La Scala, which is the weakest of the three. Keilberth 1953, released by The Intense Media at a very low price. It features Hans Hotter, Martha Mödl and Wolfgang Windgassen, among others. One of my best value for money buys ever. And the 1956 Bayreuth conducted by Hans Knappertsbusch, about the finest you can get, with Hotter, Varnay and Windsgassen.
I'll have to add more to my collection, provided the price is within reach.
Hunding is not a nice guy. He treats his wife badly, oders her around. She was given to him without her consent. Also, he has been hunting Sigmund and would have killed him if he had caught him.
You have no sense of humor.
Solt's Ring is arguably Decca's greatest recording. Still sounds stunning after all these years and as for the Vienna Phil - just fabulous! The Naxos intrigues me though. Didn't know it existed.
The ANALOG Solti ring is so much better than the digital version. But I prefer Boehm.
A lot of seedy playing from VPO, and irregular rhythms. Karajan is a useful corrective. Too bad about Herbie's choice of Siegfried...
@@RModillo Which one - Jess Thomas or Helge Brillioth?
@@ftumschk Whichever sang in Part 3. Sounds like a lieder recital gone very wrong whenever he's involved.
@@RModillo Jess Thomas. Agreed - his voice always struck me as too refined for Siegfried, especially the boisterous young Siegfried of Part 3. Thomas was great in noble roles like Parsifal and Lohengrin, but he just didn't "click" as Siegfried.
"WAGNER: the DONALD TRUMP of opera"
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Solti has dominated the catalog ever since it's release. It's the stereo yardstick, the recording to test your speakers on your system.
I happened to catch the last 10 minutes of the Gotterdammerung on UA-cam with Barenboim and Bayreuth. If you notice after the fire scene when Brunnhilde disappears into the storm and the people come out, there are two kids (boy and girl) at the forefront. Towards the end of the act, the boy takes the girl by the hand and leads her to the side (or back) of the stage, as the curtain falls. I am so glad you mentioned Barenboim, and he is a Furtwangler type conductor for sure.
Karajan's Die Walkure is special, especially with the singers you mention in that recording. Does it seem that Bohm, on the other hand, races through this cycle? Maybe it adds vitality, I don't know.
Keilberth is indeed a classic recording. But I wonder if this cycle demands stereo, so I might be reluctant to hear a monoraul recording of Wagner. I guess you have to be careful of the volume setting.
I think I am in all of the 'cults' mentioned at the outset and begin to doubt my sanity. I am told therapy is to buy box sets frequently.
„The Donald Trump of opera“. Priceless!
No wonder Wagner was so popular at the Orange Festival ;)
Yes, it's fitting in one regard - the greatest composer of opera's and the greatest US President 😉
@@Sansho1954 LOL. If there's a comparison it's that they both inspired cults.
@@Sansho1954 Pretty sure David doesn't thing Wagner to be the greatest opera composer.
@@Don-md6wn if you're actually looking for a negative example, what about Andrew Cuomo 😉
I often find myself listening to the Sawallisch recording because of the nice flow and colors of the orchestra, but it has good singers too. Karajan`s is like a recording for audiophiles, like a beautiful marble statue. The best modern recording from Bayreuth is by Barenboim, I have listened to his Walküre countless times (to my mind, Graham Clarke created probably the best modern versions of Loge and Mime, truly exciting performances!) I never really liked Nilsson and Sawallisch for some reason, there seems to be no real drama in the voices. Purely musically they are wonderful no doubt.
A very entertaining and very well done Video ( I missed any reference to Hans K. Bayreuth Ring) but I need to say I didn't know anything about Bohm Post-coitus scream 🌀 I enjoyed very much watching your Video. Stay Safe and Greetings from Spain 🚩
Somewhat amazingly, I actually own all three of your recommendations! I had the good fortune to know and work with Jimmy Brown, who was one of the Decca engineers who recorded the Solti cycle. I also met John Culshaw a few times, so I have a bit of a 'vested interest' in that version!
Love the Bohm ring. Not sure if I love it as much your biting snark though. Keep it coming Dave, you're a treasure.
I agree there is no Furtwangler ring with even halfway decent sound or even just good, solid orchestral playing. If anyone is curious about Furtwangler and Wagner, they should stick with the Tristan he did with the Philharmonia and the Walkure with the Vienna Philharmonic. Both were originally on EMI and were decently recorded, and both have been available from Naxos cheaply. Don't waste money on the complete ring versions - they won't sound significantly worse streamed, so you can get your Furtwangler indoctrination for free on UA-cam.
On September 24, Warner will release a 55 CD box of Furtwangler's Complete Studio recordings + those live performances that he approved for possible release.
Foremost among the latter is the 1937 Ring Cycle with Flagstad and Melchior at Covent Garden (the London Philharmonic is the pit band). The entire Ring was recorded by EMI engineers (not BBC engineers), but only Act 3 of Die Walkure and two hours of Gotterdammerung survive. I'll be curious to see what the new remastering sounds like.
Anyone interested in exploring Furtwangler's Ring recordings should check out the remastering on Pristine Classical. It is hands-down the best version of these recordings. Andrew Rose is more interventionist than other vintage classical reissue labels in terms of his remastering, creating his own version of "Reprocessed for stereo", but the results are amazing. You will hear many decry what he does, but not me. Anything that makes these vintage recordings easier to listen to is doing us all big service.
The Walkure sounds pretty dull, as best I remember. Sonically, not so much musically.
My first CD Ring was Bohm and I don't regret it for a first ring.
Listened to it the most, but found a flaw (hopefully a newer release has ironed it out). Part of the draw of the Ring cycle was that it's one of the few works including a contra-bass trombone, which didn't disappoint. I had access to Dover scores of the Ring, so was a little surprised to hear silence from the bass clarinet for the entire cycle. The bass clarinet is noticeable in his Tristan recording, maybe made the same year. Switched temporarily to the Boulez recording and was able to hear the the bass clarinet part that way.
My favs are Levine (earlier), Solti, and Naxos Hong Kong!
How'd you make Hunding out to be a good guy, he's one of the more despicable characters. His tribe ravaged and torched the Volsung village, abducting the children as slaves.
The girl child Sieglinde being forced to marry Hunding.
OK, so he could be grumpy. It's all relative, after all.
Equivalent to a child trafficker more like. Thanks for reply anyway👍
It's understandable I suppose... But Hunding is not a good character. He married a wife against her will, a wife whose mother was murdered by Hunding's family. He is loyal to the Gods, as he understands it, so it is nasty of Wotan to kill him, but Hunding has no personal sovereignty. He is a slave to a corrupt tradition. Wotan doesn't even have to fight him and just wills him dead. He is a sad character, I suppose, but he has no soul. He is like an animal, a "Hund" who lives and dies at his master's will.
You gotta have a sense of humor!
@@DavesClassicalGuide Humor. It is a difficult concept.
@@notrueflagshere198 Especially in Wagner.
@@DavesClassicalGuide I dunno. I sometimes get a chuckle out of, " Nun, Alberich, das schlug fehl." But there are not many punchlines. And even that one is a bit sadistic. Poor Alberich!
Daniel Barenboim's 1992 Bayreuth Laser Ring on DVD is my favourite recording. Sounds incredible, with a fantastic cast, especially Anne Evans as Brunhilde. Sotli's Ring has that 1950s Alfred Hitchcock movie music sound which I find off putting and I don't like the addition of the sound effects. Also Hans Hoffer sounds like he has a cold and they should have stuck with George London from Rheingold.
Haha, now I want a video that's just a rant about Wagnerites 😅
Thanks for this! I really like 1956 Knappertsbusch. You are right about Stewart. George London as the Rhinegold Wotan with Solti is fabulous. Curious as to your opinion on Levine on DG?
See above.
I am going to catch so much hate for this, but I grew up with the Levine Ring, and it remains my favorite to this day. I know that people complain about the glacial tempos, but honestly, the slowness of some of the sections draws out the depth of Wagner's rich harmonies and sonorous orchestrations (I like the Fate motif and the Brünnhilde's awakening motifs, for example, to be as absolutely drawn out as possible) and also does justice to the profundity of some moments ("Ruhe, ruhe" at the end of Götterdämmerung). No, Behrens is obviously not a real Wagnerian Brünnhilde, but I find that there is an extraordinary sensitivity and character to her voice that gives the character more color than the Nillsons and Varnays of the previous generation. Reiner Goldberg is an acquired taste, but one eventually falls in love with the sound. And of course, one associates it with the Otto Schenck/Günther Schneider-Siemssen production at the Met, which remains one of the greatest opera productions in history
Fine safe & sane recommendations! People say all sorts of stupid, pretentious things about Solti's Ring conducting. I love that Ring and it holds up for me over decades like no other commercially issued cycle with ONE caveat. When I decide to play it, I like to substitute the earlier RCA/Decca Walkure, the one conducted by Leinsdorf. Walkure was the one disappointment in the Solti cycle. Georg is labored in Act 1 and Hotter really is too far gone by 1966, too woofy. London is much better, he continues his Wotan from the Rheingold, Nilsson is here, we have a young Vickers, more spontaneous than for HvK. And Leinsdorf is as exciting as Boehm.
Hotter is best heard from those 50s Bayreuth cycles, including Knappertsbusch versions for that slower, more grandiose Ring with that from the bottom up saturated orchestral sound. He could get sloppy even slovenly but its still something to hear like that Decca recorded 1951 Gotterdammerung on Testament which is overwhelming.
I agree the Leinsdorf is spectacular.
London’ s Act 3 is terrifying. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an ANGRIER Wotan.
I have (for the last few years, at least) favored Knappertsbusch when it comes to re-listening, but I'm speaking as someone who hasn't actually buckled down and listened to the entirety of Keilberth's.
I wonder whether I am the only person on earth thinking that Fischer-Dieskau (in the Karajan ring) is the most clear and intelligent voice of Wotan ever, and wondering how his Walküre Wotan would have been.
Interesting that you mentioned Jaap von Sweden's Ring as being similar to von Karajan's. Not only did von Sweden use a lieder singer (Goerne) for Wotan, so did Karajan, with Fischer-Dieskau.
Something you might have mentioned in recommending the Solti Ring as the hands-down best choice for a first recording, is the whole Culshaw-Ring-Resounding-Stereo aspect, with every special effect following Wagner's specifications to a T: the full set of precisely tuned anvils, authentic alpenhorns, an enormous thunder machine, and on and on. Those might be non-musical factors, but as you point out, Wagner was a man of the theater, and he pulled out all the stops in The Ring.
I pick out parts of Solti's and Karajan's recordings. For Die Walkure, there is HVK's with Jon Vickers' glorious Sigmund and Janowitz' Sieglinde - gorgeously sung and acted, plus the loveliest Magic Fire music. For Siegfried, I turn to Solti because he captures the darkness of the opera, contrasted with a luminous final scene before and after Siegfried has woken up Brunnhilde. Also, Windgassen is superb at conveying the heroid moron that is Siegfried. For Gotterdamerung, again I go with Solti, again because he captures the dramatic and the lyrical wonderfully. Solti's inimitable intensity is very well suited for The Ring. Honorable mention: Bohm's Ring is very exciting and well worth a listen. Rysanek's famous scream when Sigmund pulls out the sword is fantastic.
My main issue with the Patrice Chereau production was that it was the first ever broadcast Ring and should have been more traditional for those who had loves the work for years. Instead of the magical, legend, he gave us modern drek.
15:43 Gordon Parry, I think. An electronic and musical genius.
David, would you like to say something about the EMI Goodall Ring, in English? Even if only as a warning? Reginald does have his cult following especially among Brit critics. Tempi beyond slooooow. (I call it the Badall Ring though I admire Rita Hunter and Norman Bailey.)
Deadly, but it does have some great singing. Goodall was, with the exception of his Tristan, pretty horrible. There, I've said it. Then there's the English translation, like when Sieglinde discovers she is pregnant and she rapturously praises Brunnhilde with the words, 'Oh, you radiant housewife!"
@@DavesClassicalGuide Amen to all you just wrote.
@@hmhparis1904 Parsifal can take to very slow tempi handily but the recorded cast isn't great. Toscanini's Bayreuth Parsifal was the slowest ever, at least the first performance. Love Knappertsbusch and even Levine.
@DJ Quinn LOL, It may be the only Rheingold ever to have been issued on 4 lps (!) and 3 CDs with the predictable exception of Levine's. Kna's expansive 1951 cycle (Testament issued the majestic Recca-recorded Gotterdammerung from the cycle) was 162' but that was a bit unusual for him. Richter, the first 1876 conductor came in at 150'-151'.
@@andrewclarke6899 Bumbry's casting was a welcome breakthrough and Wieland deserves kudos for it. Goodall's horrible NSDAP sympathies were appalling, I was disgusted when I read about him, but it didn't influence my feelings about his Ring because that had already repelled me. ;)
While not Ring related, I read about a Wagnerian insult which is, " May you be stuck in a performance of Parsifal.... without a sandwich!".
Hi David, I have just discovered your channel and would like to say how much I have enjoyed what I've seen and heard so far. In 2004 I attended the State Opera production of the full cycle in Adelaide, South Australia as conducted by Asher Fisch. The whole endeavor was recorded and released on the Melba Label on SACD Hybrid CDs. The production was engineered by the same people who were later responsible for the marvelous recent Naxos Hong Kong edition. Have you heard it? The Walkure in particular is excellent.
Welcome aboard! No, I have not heard the Melba recordings.
I have just started listening and viewing the Opera North staged concert performance, courtesy BBC, 2017, via UA-cam - I have some reasonable quality Audioengine speakers, and my ears at age 75 are too old to worry about hifi frequencies above 8k. . I've never heard any of the Ring Cycle previously, so as to the quality of the singing and orchestra compared to the CDs boxes discussed, I am not qualified to comment, but as a gentle introduction to the music with subtitles and no distracting "stage business", just some appropriate and imaginative visual effects, I shall see how things go. I see that the English National Opera are undertaking a new Ring Cycle, which I presume will be sung in English. As I live in NZ, I'm unlikely to be able to see this in person, but I hope that the Cycle will be recorded.
One cannot even make an intelligent decision as to which Ring is the best Ring until one has worn at least one ring on each finger, simultaneously, meaning having listened through at the very least 10 Ring performances successfully, before having the basis with which to make up one's intelligent decision. Mr Hurwitz has. Yep, the rings convoluted plot is that deep,. and the recordings available are that numerous, which disqualifies any judgment until one has gone through at least 10 hoops
Myself? The favorite is Solti.
I have ,Bohm. I have Levine. I have one of the two Furtwangler's. I have Barenboim-underwhelming, especially when compared with solti's Ring. I have the deluxe version of Marek Janoski-seriously infrequently played. I have Swarovski and Thielmann on MP3, the latter likewise underwhelming; meaning that I still have two, or three fingers yet to cover, likely best done with the von Karajan; sadly an unfortunately with a price being found still well above and beyond my pay grade; and the Knappertbusch. The legendary Keilberth Bayreuth performance is also likewise far and above my pay grade.
Many thanks, David, for the video.
I find Wagner really tough. He was amazing, a genius. I love his music but he was also a vile pre-Nazi political inspiration of Hitler. I love his music but it teaches you a bit about separating the music from the person. Jackson, the frontman from The Lost Prophets, Glitter. You have to separate the music from the monster. I'm happy to be seen wrong, in my opinion. The thing about opinions is that you are entitled to them and others welcome to oppose them. The trouble is that the internet doesn't seem to realise this.