Wagner. The Ring, Siegfried Idyll

Richard Wagner began composing his Wesendonck Lieder during a stay in Zurich between November and December 1857. Originally conceived for female voice and piano alone, the five songs were later orchestrated, first by the Austrian conductor and composer Felix Mottl in 1893, and then later in 1976 by the German composer Hans Werner Henze, in a chamber setting. In fact Wagner had already orchestrated a version of "Träume” to be performed by chamber orchestra (with violin playing the voice part) on the occasion of his wife Minna’s birthday in 1857. Later, in 1870, for his second wife Cosima’s 33rd birthday, he enacted a similar gesture. Mixing new motifs with themes from his Ring cycle, he composed the Siegfried Idyll and had it performed by a small orchestra as a birthday surprise.

Siegfried Wagner - Complete Overtures Vol. 1
Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz / Werner Andreas Albert
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 252 MB | Full Artwork: 128 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: CPO # 999 003-2 | Country/Year: Germany 1994
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic, Early 20th Century

Siegfried Wagner had the best musical pedigree that a composer could conceivably have: the son of Richard Wagner and the grandson of Franz Liszt (through Liszt's daughter Cosima). His ancestry proved to be a decidedly mixed blessing, however, as the younger Wagner – despite working in a different musical era – was never fully able to step outside of the long shadow cast by his father, even as he engendered the jealousy of musical rivals. (…) Following Siegfried Wagner's death, the family did its best to suppress performances of his music, casting its lot with the more popular and profitable works of Richard Wagner, and it was only with lapsing of various copyrights, and the formation of the Siegfried Wagner Society in 1972, that his music was made available again, first in concert editions and more recently in full performances.

Few record labels from the dawn of the LP era are recalled with more admiration and affection than Westminster Records – its first records from 1950 established Westminster as a pioneering source, exploring new and exciting corners of repertoire.

Conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler already enjoyed a worldwide legendary standing during his lifetime - he was considered the German conductor and performances were greeted with rapturous applause. Today, more than 50 years after his death, Wilhelm Furtwangler is still an icon and his work has become an integral part ofthe music scene.

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 34 years. During the Nazi era, he debuted at the Salzburg Festival, with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, and during World War II he conducted at the Berlin State Opera. Generally regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, he was a controversial but dominant figure in European classical music from the mid-1950s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate, he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records.

Wilhelm Furtwängler is a musical titan, one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century. Some would say he is the greatest of all. A supreme, inimitable interpreter of the Austro-German symphonic repertoire, and of Wagner's music dramas, he remains a towering point of reference for performers and audiences.The unparalleled scope of this 55CD set makes it an essential for the music-lover. Not only is it the first collection to unite Furtwängler's entire catalogue of studio recordings, it also encompasses every live recording he made with a view to commercial release. Painstaking research has even unearthed a treasury of previously unpublished material, recorded in Vienna and Copenhagen.

"The central part of the "Ring" tetralogy is precisely this: a hero has been created who would actually have had all the attributes of freedom, but nobody remembered to tell him…" (Patrice Chéreau). "One can only marvel at how enthrallingly Chéreau has made visible every ramification of this malignant idyll and bitter comedy. In its faithful service to this fabulously polished staging Brian Large's video direction is a model" (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).

Wagner - Complete Piano Music - Pier Paolo Vincenzi (2013) {2CD Brilliant Classics 94450}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 351 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 340 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 23 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2013 Brilliant Classics | 94450
Classical / Sonatas / Solo Piano

Richard Wagner's reputation rests on his tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen, and the other music dramas he created, including Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal, which revolutionized all aspects of late Romantic music and left their mark on modern music as well. Yet there is a small body of non-operatic works that shows a more relaxed Wagner working on a much smaller scale: his Siegfried Idyll for chamber orchestra, a group of songs, and a collection of pieces for piano. This double CD by Pier Paolo Vincenzi presents Wagner's complete piano music with three sonatas, a large-scale fantasia, and eleven short pieces that show the composer's attempts at finding a more personal and intimate voice.