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Well, it is Good Friday....and what says Good Friday more than the "Good Friday" music from Parsifal? OK, any number of Passions. I know it is a masterpiece, but I find Bach's St. Matthew's Passion a tough slog. My first recording was the Richter, and I currently have the McCreesh - by the way, I am not convinced by the single voice to a part choruses. Messiah is really an Easter piece as well, but has become associated with Christmas.
At any rate, while I have no issues hearing Parsifal at other times, I do try to make it an Easter piece as well. It turns out I own 7 recordings - Knappertbusch 62 (Philips), Knappertbusch 56 (Melodram), Kubelik, Barenboim, Janowski, Gergiev and Solti. I listened to Act III of the Solti the other night. Quite beautiful, although Kollo is really overparted by "Nur eine Waffe taugt". My favorite is the consensus choice, Kna 62, followed by Kubelik - I think there is something to be said for the sound quality in Parsifal, and the Kna 56 is radiocheck mono. Janowski's SACD recording is OK, Barenboim (to me) a little faceless, and I don't think Gergiev has a clue of what Parsifal is about.
I also have the Muck excerpts, which every Wagnerite should hear, and of course for those who have an aversion to singing there is the de Waart recording of "Wagner: An Orchestral Quest" - no singing. Actually of the 3 de Waart Wagner without words, I think this is the best one.
I'm sure that others have their favorites as well. I have never heard Boulez or Karajan, and I have heard Levine in a Met broadcast....slow......
Follow Ups:
Parsifal is the onlyWagner opera that puts me to sleep, although the end of Sigfried come close
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Either Parsifal sucks you in, and then it seems short, or it doesn't - and if it doesn't it would go on forever.
I've avoided the performance, assuming that Solti's would be too hard-driven to allow the luminous parts... to "luminate."
I recall the reviews of the set when it first came out....they noted that Solti had matured as a Wagner conductor, that it was a much more mellow than expected based on his reputation as a dynamic conductor. I always found Solti's recordings of Mozart's operas to belie his reputation as well, so it comes as no surprise that the orchestral execution is actually lovely and not whipped-up. And it is the Vienna Phil, and a Decca recording. Of the sets I own, I would place Solti's conducting above that of Gergiev, certainly, and Janowski. But Kna certainly gets to the heart of the matter better, as does Kubelik in the recording he made in 1980 with the Bavarian Symphony (as we call it in English). Solti' cast is variable - this isn't Kollo's best role, and I don't know about Frick - but he has Christa Ludwig and Fischer-Dieskau.
So I don't think Solti's set is indispensable - it is a noble effort, but falls short of others. I have collected all of his Wagner sets on LP, with the exception of Tristan, so of course I need these one being the collector that I am. I'm looking for a good copy of that Tristan, by the way.
TGR:
Solti seems to arouse passions of some critics; me, not so much. I have been annoyed by his tendency to clip rhythms in Verdi (my standard is Toscanini), but still have not found him to be hyper-driven. And further to your comment re Mozart, there's a Magic Flute (with Christina Deutekom as Queen) that is beautiful. I am not familiar with Solti's entire discography, of course, but I wonder from time to time if he did something truly outlandish once and became condemned thereafter to critical expectations of more of the same.
Jeremy
FYI: At least some of the Solti "Tristan" London LP boxed sets came with a bonus LP of rehearsal excerpts. And some came with an awesome full-color large postcard of Nilsson in Isolde drag. Things you might want to keep in mind while shopping around.
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At the moment, I am not at liberty to reveal who said it was "the best," but...
Judge for yourselves!
jm
Seriously, this guy is getting lots of acclaim - and deservedly so.
is the real deal.
nt
Hi, TGR - I don't have nearly the number of Parsifal sets you do, but both my wife and I still love the 1993 Levine/Met DVD with Meier, Jerusalem et al. This is really my idea of what a traditional production ought to embody. The attention to detail in the sets is just overwhelming!
I'm beginning to agree with some opera buffs that the visuals are a necessary part of the opera experience too, and just listening to a soundtrack so-to-speak (on CD, vinyl, SACD, or whatever) misses much of the intended experience which the composer and librettist doubtless had in mind. Of course, sound-only recordings are in many cases the only way we can get to magnificent performances by certain great artists, so what else can we do? ;-) (Not to mention that so many productions that find their way to video are infected by Eurotrash stagings! But Levine's video Parsifal is certainly exceptional IMHO.)
Also, I kind of disagree with you about Gergiev's recording (which I've heard only on Spotify). Even listening via Spotify, I was bowled over by the technical quality of the engineering. And as for the performance, maybe I approached it with a different set of expectations (i.e., I wasn't expecting much), but I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it - the clarity was just amazing. (Of course, that could have been from the SQ too.)
BTW, I also wanted to mention that I got a chance to work very briefly (a couple of times) with Irene Dalis (the Kundry in Kna's '62 performance) after she retired and was working at San Jose State and Opera San Jose. (Don't call it Opera Silicon Valley!) Wonderful lady!
As for your general point as to what makes good listening on Good Friday, I'm kind of partial to Parsifal (of course!), but my Bach choice would be the St. John Passion, rather than the St. Matthew Passion. I just know the St. John quite a bit better than I know the St. Matthew, although (as I've mentioned in a previous post), I believe Schumann preferred the St. John Passion too - for its concentration of the drama (as opposed to the expansion of it in the St. Matthew). In any case, they're both great works - but I do feel that the St. John sometimes gets a bit of a short shrift from some listeners and writers. (My favorite performance is the old Lehel-led version on the Hungaroton label, with Reti, Hamari, et al.) And just in the last week, I've discovered Maximilian Steinberg's magnificent Passion Week works (posting below, under the Gretchaninoff thread), which I'm sure will be part of my Holy Week listening in future years too.
Hi Chris, thanks for the thoughtful post. After reading it, I decided to spin my one recording of the St. John Passion that I have, which is the Netherlands Bach Society SACD on Channel. I am finding it a very interesting experience. It seems more lyrical, on first listening, than the St. Matthew Passion. I have had this recording for a number of years, but have to say I haven't really listened.
Your comment about operatic sound tracks is thought-provoking. I find that listening to the music only allows my imagination to roam, and I am not listening to a specific person, but rather a character, which isn't true when you watch. Recorded music without video seems to have expanding possibilities, while a video, no matter how good, would seem to tie you to a particular set of circumstances and be much more limiting. The same gestures, the same camera angles, the same sets, each and every time. I suppose you could say the same about the music only, but to me it seems much more objective and idealistic. There is nothing like seeing opera live, but it doesn't translate that well for me to the small screen to be seen for multiple viewings.
Of course, to be true to Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, the merger of music, poetry and theater, one would have to accede to your point. But in this day of Regietheater, I often prefer to have my eyes shut.....a few years ago the SF Opera gave a performance of Lohengrin, with fabulous casting - Brandon Javanovich was superb as Lohengrin. The director got the idea to set Lohengrin in the midst of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. I was hoping there was some logical, artistic vision behind this, but nope, he just thought it would be interesting, text and context be damned. He was rightfully booed when appearing on stage after the conclusion. I don't mind updates when there is a legitimate artistic purpose be served....but here nothing beyond arrogance.
Irene Dalis was a fabulous Kundry, and to her great credit ran a heckuva opera company on almost no money. You are indeed fortunate to have gotten to know her.
Tom
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