BaL 20.06.15 - Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

[visualnickmos]

Thanks very much, VNick

Seems RK is tops in Parsifal and Meistersingers. Wonder what others he's done.

An excellent Lohengrin on DG....

ferney just pipped me to the post!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

An excellent Lohengrin on DG....

ferney just pipped me to the post!

"Excellent" is right!

Toodle - pip!




(Provided Pip doesn't object to being toodled, of course.)

[Beef Oven!]

Thanks chaps - this could get expensive!

[umslopogaas]

#58, thanks ferney, I didnt think it very likely that Decca would have issued the same cast in the same opera twice in two successive years, but you never know (HMV actually did just that with Gounod's 'Faust', though that was because the first was mono only, the second in stereo which had just become available).

[LeMartinPecheur]

The "Naxos incarnation" is this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Die-Meistersinger-Nurnberg-Knappertsbusch-Vienna/dp/B000F6YWQC/

... which is the same cast as the one you mention. The reverse of the cover image states "recorded in Vienna in 1950-51" and seems to suggest that Act Two was originally issued first.

The 1952 Sackville-West/ Shawe-Taylor Record Year gives the complete set with the numbers umslopogaas quotes. It was also available in separate sets for each act. The numbers for these do indeed suggest that Act 2 was issued first (Act 1 LXT 2646-7, Act 2 2560-1, Act 3 2648-50).

The text says it was also recorded first, and with "serious subordination of orchestra to voice" compared with the other acts. Anyone wanting the full critical insights can PM me - the one set it's up against is the Karajan/ Bayreuth Columbia that was still on 78s only (34 of them).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

- the one set it's up against is the Karajan/ Bayreuth Columbia that was still on 78s only (34 of them).

Wasn't there a DECCA cartoon advertisement in Gramophone showing two buyers? The DECCA customer happily walking away with his seven vinyl LPs, whilst the other watched in dismay as the 34 shellac 78s fell from his clutches to smash onto the ground.

[Petrushka]

The 1952 Sackville-West/ Shawe-Taylor Record Year gives the complete set with the numbers umslopogaas quotes. It was also available in separate sets for each act. The numbers for these do indeed suggest that Act 2 was issued first (Act 1 LXT 2646-7, Act 2 2560-1, Act 3 2648-50).

The text says it was also recorded first, and with "serious subordination of orchestra to voice" compared with the other acts. Anyone wanting the full critical insights can PM me - the one set it's up against is the Karajan/ Bayreuth Columbia that was still on 78s only (34 of them).

I've just been reading the Amazon.com review by Sante Fe Listener which explains why this recording was made over two years and why Act 2 was recorded first. That same review seems to agree with the 1952 Record Year regarding the balance between voices and orchestra.

Can I recommend again the 1938 Dresden recording of Act 3 recorded by Karl Böhm? This was meant to have been the first complete recording of the opera but other events intervened to scupper it . Goodness knows how many 78s that would have taken up!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wagner-R-Meistersinger-Nurnberg-Staatskapelle/dp/B002WMV40O/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1434825286&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=bohm+meistersinger+act+3

[Bryn]

Kubelik, 1967.

Which is currently available as a free download (256kbps mp3) from http://us3.campaign-archive1.com/?u=...9&e=452c7dc602

Just scan down to it on the page linked to and register for their emails and updates (I did so long ago and do not find them obtrusive).

You even get a printable pdf of a CD insert with cast and recording info plus track listing.

[Prommer]

Which is currently available as a free download (256kbps mp3) from http://us3.campaign-archive1.com/?u=...9&e=452c7dc602

Just scan down to it on the page linked to and register for their emails and updates (I did so long ago and do not find them obtrusive).

You even get a printable pdf of a CD insert with cast and recording info plus track listing.

Top tip! Thank you.

Odd to see this studio recording on a site dedicated to live recordings!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Wasn't there a DECCA cartoon advertisement in Gramophone showing two buyers? The DECCA customer happily walking away with his seven vinyl LPs, whilst the other watched in dismay as the 34 shellac 78s fell from his clutches to smash onto the ground.

I know I shouldn't, but …

[slarty]

Top tip! Thank you.

Odd to see this studio recording on a site dedicated to live recordings!

It was originally made as a radio recording to be broadcast in 1968 for the Meistersinger Centenary celebrations. The broadcast was so successful that DG bought the recording to issue on LP. The contractual difficulties however were such that it was never released by them. They would never have made a recording with so many singers contracted to different companies. It only ever received a private pressing by DG as a giveaway in 1968 to selected clients and artists.
After 3 decades the copyright reverted back to Bavarian Radio.

[Nick Armstrong]

Pace the nits being picked with the programme, am I allowed to say how much I enjoyed it? Dr Baraganwath has a good radio voice and manner, he didn't attempt to score cheap points and there was some glorious singing to be heard. The ROH Quintet was, as he said, sublime .....

Oh dear, I'm a nit-picker then, having listened this morning. I'm rather with Bert Coules in finding that a difficult task was not very satisfactorily tackled - I came away with the sense of a sequence of illustrations rather than much analysis or idea of how the overall interpretations worked. Maybe it's because it's a piece I know well. I didn't come away much the wiser (fat chance, some would say), or even better informed. (Anyway, I must be in a contrary mood, because I didn't like the sound of the ROH Quintet at all... )

He was very dismissive of Lorenz's Walther as too concerned with articulation, whereas I thought it powerfully eloquent!

Oh so did I! I ached to hear that in better sound... dream on!

But then again, I do have difficulty enjoying hearing people sing about "deutsches Volk und Reich" in Bavaria in 1943.

For those with a stronger stomach than mine, the whole thing is available free:

The BAL was a good reminder how wonderful Elisabeth Grümmer and Gundula Janowitz are; and (à propos CD clear-outs - see relevant thread) I think I may get rid of my Karajan box, never liked it much and the reviewer did effectively point up why (although at the end I think recommended it more highly than Jochum et al )

And it was odd that he 'illustrated' the Jurowski DVD - and then didn' t mention it in his DVD recommendations, favouring Levine and Thielemann without playing any extracts... (incidentally, the Jurowski video is, amazingly, also on YouTube in its entirety, divided into two parts).

So for me, this BAL felt like a missed opportunity - can't help thinking that wiser Wagnerian birds such as John Deathridge or Patrick Carnegy (previous BAL reviewers in this area) would have made a more illuminating fist of it.

[Karafan]

The Abendroth is available in a huge box set. I've added it to the list.

I do like the Abendroth set and those interested might like to know the same recording as the Preiser is available on the Myto label at a greatly reduced cost: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Die-Meisters...rds=B001G78UCQ

Karafan

[Karafan]

I've just been reading the Amazon.com review by Sante Fe Listener which explains why this recording was made over two years and why Act 2 was recorded first. That same review seems to agree with the 1952 Record Year regarding the balance between voices and orchestra.

Can I recommend again the 1938 Dresden recording of Act 3 recorded by Karl Böhm? This was meant to have been the first complete recording of the opera but other events intervened to scupper it . Goodness knows how many 78s that would have taken up!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wagner-R-Mei...ersinger+act+3

Speaking of Karl Böhm, his live 1968 performance now released on Orfeo is in superb sound and definitely worth investigating, but for truly wonderful singing see if you can get hold of one of my most treasured Meistersingers - his December 1944 performance (in splendid sound!) on Preiser with Paul Schöffler: unmissable!

K

[HighlandDougie]

I came away with the sense of a sequence of illustrations rather than much analysis or idea of how the overall interpretations worked.

Well to a non-cognoscento of recordings or performances of Meistersinger (no opera-queen, I), I found it illuminating. I do, though, take your point about the analysis being a bit slight (err, possibly non-existent) but think that the problem may have lain in PB trying to be as fair as possible in his allotted 45 minutes. He could have done a Deathridge by choosing to concentrate on fewer recordings when I guess that he would have had more time to explore, say, Karajan's approach to Meistersinger as a gesamtkunstwerk. We will, though, have to agree to disagree on Haitink's quintet which I thought was well-blended singing - I'm sure that there are finer individual voices in each of the roles but, for me, the whole was definitely greater than the sum of the parts.