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Wagner - Operatic Highlights / R Strauss - Tone Poems, Metamorphosen | EMI 2484682

Wagner - Operatic Highlights / R Strauss - Tone Poems, Metamorphosen

Label: EMI

Cat No: 2484682

Barcode: 5099924846820

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 5

Release Date: 4th March 2013

This product has now been deleted. Information is for reference only.

Contents

Works

Strauss, Richard

Don Juan, op.20
Metamorphosen
Salome, op.54
» Dance of the Seven Veils
Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, op.28
Tod und Verklarung (Death and Transfiguration), op.24

Wagner, Richard

Das Rheingold
» Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla
Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman)
» Overture
Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
» Dance of the apprentices
» Entry of the Masters
» Prelude to Act 1
Die Walkure
» Die so leidig Los dir beschied (Act 1))
» Du bist der Lenz (Act 1)
» Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater
» Einen Unseligen labtest du (Act 1)
» Friedmund darf ich nicht heissen (Act 1)
» Ich weiss ein wildes Geschlecht (Act 1)
» Leb wohl, du kuhnes, herrliches Kind!
» Mud am Herd fand ich den Mann (Act 1)
» Oh Susseste Wonne! Seligstes Weib! (Act I)
» Prelude Act 1
» Ride of the Valkyries
» Schlafst du, Gast? Ich bin's! (Act 1)
» Siegmund heiss ich und Siegmund bin ich!
» Wes Herd dies auch sei, hier muss ich rasten (Act 1)
» Wintersturme wichen dem Wonnemond (Siegmund's Love-Song)
Gotterdammerung
» Siegfried's Funeral March (Act 3)
» Siegfried's Rhine Journey
Lohengrin
» Prelude to Act 1
» Prelude to Act 3
Parsifal
» Prelude to Act 1
Rienzi
» Overture
Siegfried Idyll, WWV103
Siegfried
» Forest Murmurs
Tannhauser
» Overture
» Prelude to Act 3
Tristan und Isolde
» Isolde's Liebestod (Act 3)
» Prelude to Act 1
Wesendonck-Lieder (5) (orch. Felix Mottl)

Artists

Helga Dernesch
William Cochran
Hans Sotin
Norman Bailey (baritone)
Christa Ludwig (mezzo-soprano)
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Philharmonia Orchestra

Conductor

Otto Klemperer

Works

Strauss, Richard

Don Juan, op.20
Metamorphosen
Salome, op.54
» Dance of the Seven Veils
Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, op.28
Tod und Verklarung (Death and Transfiguration), op.24

Wagner, Richard

Das Rheingold
» Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla
Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman)
» Overture
Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
» Dance of the apprentices
» Entry of the Masters
» Prelude to Act 1
Die Walkure
» Die so leidig Los dir beschied (Act 1))
» Du bist der Lenz (Act 1)
» Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater
» Einen Unseligen labtest du (Act 1)
» Friedmund darf ich nicht heissen (Act 1)
» Ich weiss ein wildes Geschlecht (Act 1)
» Leb wohl, du kuhnes, herrliches Kind!
» Mud am Herd fand ich den Mann (Act 1)
» Oh Susseste Wonne! Seligstes Weib! (Act I)
» Prelude Act 1
» Ride of the Valkyries
» Schlafst du, Gast? Ich bin's! (Act 1)
» Siegmund heiss ich und Siegmund bin ich!
» Wes Herd dies auch sei, hier muss ich rasten (Act 1)
» Wintersturme wichen dem Wonnemond (Siegmund's Love-Song)
Gotterdammerung
» Siegfried's Funeral March (Act 3)
» Siegfried's Rhine Journey
Lohengrin
» Prelude to Act 1
» Prelude to Act 3
Parsifal
» Prelude to Act 1
Rienzi
» Overture
Siegfried Idyll, WWV103
Siegfried
» Forest Murmurs
Tannhauser
» Overture
» Prelude to Act 3
Tristan und Isolde
» Isolde's Liebestod (Act 3)
» Prelude to Act 1
Wesendonck-Lieder (5) (orch. Felix Mottl)

Artists

Helga Dernesch
William Cochran
Hans Sotin
Norman Bailey (baritone)
Christa Ludwig (mezzo-soprano)
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Philharmonia Orchestra

Conductor

Otto Klemperer

About

This collection sees Otto Klemperer lead the Philharmonia and New Philharmonia orchestras in compelling performances of works by Wagner and Richard Strauss. The set features highlights from each of Wagner’s most acclaimed operas, as well as Strauss’s Don Juan and a 1962 account of Tod und Verklärung that was hailed as one of Klemperer’s finest late recordings.

Ambivalent is the word which best describes Klemperer’s feelings about Germany’s two great musical Richards, Wagner and Strauss. During his early years as an opera conductor in Germany, Klemperer conducted a modicum of Strauss and a good deal of Wagner, though from the outset it was clear that he was never going to be an unthinking fan of either.

The music of both composers did, nonetheless, cast its spell. Recording Act 1 of Wagner’s Die Walküre in London in 1969 was, he said, like meeting a woman he had loved 40 years ago and discovering that she was much as she had always been. He went on: ‘I find the music thrilling. Thrilling! One can say this or that about Wagner, but no one else could have written that music. No one! It’s as stupid to underestimate Wagner as it is to overestimate him. He doesn’t need either’.

Klemperer’s attitude to the operas of Richard Strauss was no less mixed. He thrilled to Salome, which even as an old man he considered to be one of the twentieth century’s most original scores, revered Elektra, and took great delight in Ariadne auf Naxos. On the other hand, he found too much ‘sugar-water’ in Der Rosenkavalier and was baffled by Die Frau ohne Schatten of which he conducted a handful of performances in Cologne in 1919.

The Strauss work which had first impressed Klemperer – he was 15 at the time – was Tod und Verklärung. What struck the young enthusiast was the quality of the orchestration and the remorselessness of the build-up of the thematic material, qualities Klemperer would later bring to his own reading of a work which does indeed advance implacably towards its sought-for goal: the soul’s transfiguration as memories of childhood visions and unattained artistic ideals grandly mingle.

Knowing the man as he did, Klemperer experienced few difficulties in coming to terms with Strauss’s equivocations during the Nazi era. As the Second World War drew towards its close, Strauss began working on Metamorphosen, a threnody for 23 solo strings born of the trauma of wartime cultural loss: the Goethe house destroyed, Dresden, Munich, Weimar all in ruins. ‘Basically quite nice’ was Klemperer’s laconic comment on the piece, yet no one was more eager to conduct it, an ambition he realised in Budapest in March 1948. Klemperer’s coupling of Metamorphosen with Tod und Verklärung on an LP first released in 1962 was widely welcomed as one of the finest of all his late recordings.

Contents:
CD 1
[79.18]
Richard Wagner
Rienzi
1. Overture
Recorded: 1960

Tannhäuser
2. Overture
Recorded: 1960
3. Act 3: Prelude
Recorded: 1960-1963

Lohengrin
4. Act 1: Prelude
Recorded: 1960
5. Act 3: Prelude
Recorded: 1960

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
6. Act 1: Prelude
Recorded: 1960
7. Act 3: Dance of the Apprentices & Entry of the Masters
Recorded: 1960

Parsifal
8. Act 1: Prelude
Recorded: 1961-1963

Philharmonia Orchestra
Recorded: Kingsway Hall, London

CD 2 [78.57]
Der fliegende Holländer
1. Overture
Recorded: 1960

Das Rheingold
2. Scene 4: Entry of the Gods into Valhalla
Recorded: 1961-1963

Die Walküre
3. Act 3: The Ride of the Valkyries
Recorded: 1960-1963

4. Siegfried Idyll
Recorded: 1961

Siegfried
5. Act 2: Forest Murmurs
Recorded: 1961-1963

Götterdämmerung
6. Interlude: Siegfried’s Rhine Journey
Recorded: 1960
7. Act 3: Siegfried’s Funeral March
Recorded: 1960-1963

Tristan und Isolde
8. Act 1: Prelude & Act 3: Liebestod
Recorded: 1960

Philharmonia Orchestra
Recorded: Kingsway Hall, London

CD 3 [71.40]
Die Walküre
Act 1
1. Prelude (Orchestra)
2. Wes Herd dies auch sei, hier muß ich rasten (Siegmund/Sieglinde)
3. Einen Unseligen labtest du (Siegmund/Sieglinde)
4. Mud am Herd fand ich den Mann (Sieglinde/Hunding/Siegmund)
5. Friedmund darf ich nicht heißen (Siegmund/Hunding/Sieglinde)
6. Die so leidig Los dir beschied (Hunding/Sieglinde/Siegmund)
7. Ich weiß ein wildes Geschlecht (Hunding)
8. Ein Schwert verhieß mir der Vater (Siegmund)
9. Schläfst du, Gast? (Sieglinde/Siegmund)
10. Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond (Siegmund)
11. Du bist der Lenz (Sieglinde)
12. O süßeste Wonne! (Siegmund/Sieglinde)
13. Siegmund heiß’ ich (Siegmund)
Cast:
Sieglinde: Helga Dernesch
Siegmund: William Cochran
Hunding: Hans Sotin
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Recorded: 1969 and 1970, All Saints’ Church, Tooting, London

CD 4 [76.30]
Die Walküre
1. Leb’ wohl, du kühnes, herrliches Kind! (Wotans Abschied, Act III)
Norman Bailey (baritone)
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Recorded: 1970, All Saints’ Church, Tooting, London

Wesendonck-Lieder (orch. Mottl)
2. I. Der Engel
3. II. Stehe still!
4. III. Im Treibhaus
5. IV. Schmerzen
6. V. Träume

Tristan und Isolde
7. Mild und leise (Isoldes Liebestod, Act III) 6.48
Christa Ludwig (mezzo-soprano)
Philharmonia Orchestra
Recorded: 1962, Kingsway Hall, London

Richard Strauss
8. Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings
Philharmonia Orchestra
Recorded: 1961, Kingsway Hall, London

CD 5 [64.05]
1. Don Juan Op.20
Recorded: 1960

2. Tod und Verklärung Op.24
Recorded: 1961

Salome Op.54
3. Dance of the Seven Veils
Recorded: 1960

4. Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche Op.28
Recorded: 1960

Philharmonia Orchestra
Recorded: Kingsway Hall, London

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