Knappertsbusch

Gathered together for the first time on Universal Music labels, including several first CD releases on Decca, is the orchestral legacy of an inimitable genius of the podium: Hans Knappertsbusch. Even in his own lifetime, Hans Knappertsbusch divided opinion, between listeners affronted by technical slips caused by his notorious aversion to rehearsal and those who saw in him the last representative of a performing tradition dating back to Richard Wagner. Working mostly in the opera houses of Munich and Vienna, he never became music director of a symphony orchestra, but his postwar Decca recordings of central repertoire from Beethoven to Strauss, including three distinguished concerto collaborations with Clifford Curzon, preserve interpretations of a flexibility, sweep and grandeur scarcely imaginable today.

Gathered together for the first time on Universal Music labels, including several first CD releases on Decca, is the orchestral legacy of an inimitable genius of the podium: Hans Knappertsbusch. Even in his own lifetime, Hans Knappertsbusch divided opinion, between listeners affronted by technical slips caused by his notorious aversion to rehearsal and those who saw in him the last representative of a performing tradition dating back to Richard Wagner. Working mostly in the opera houses of Munich and Vienna, he never became music director of a symphony orchestra, but his postwar Decca recordings of central repertoire from Beethoven to Strauss, including three distinguished concerto collaborations with Clifford Curzon, preserve interpretations of a flexibility, sweep and grandeur scarcely imaginable today.

Gathered together for the first time on Universal Music labels, including several first CD releases on Decca, is the orchestral legacy of an inimitable genius of the podium: Hans Knappertsbusch. Even in his own lifetime, Hans Knappertsbusch divided opinion, between listeners affronted by technical slips caused by his notorious aversion to rehearsal and those who saw in him the last representative of a performing tradition dating back to Richard Wagner. Working mostly in the opera houses of Munich and Vienna, he never became music director of a symphony orchestra, but his postwar Decca recordings of central repertoire from Beethoven to Strauss, including three distinguished concerto collaborations with Clifford Curzon, preserve interpretations of a flexibility, sweep and grandeur scarcely imaginable today.

Hans Knappertsbusch (1888 - 1965) was one of the most renowned and beloved conductors of the German Romantic repertoire in the mid-twentieth century. Although he grew up playing and loving music, his parents objected to the notion of a musical career. Consequently, Knappertsbusch studied philosophy at Bonn University; in 1908, however, he entered the Cologne Conservatory, where he studied conducting with Fritz Steinbach. Knappertsbusch began his career as a staff conductor at the Mülheim-Ruhr Theater (1910 - 1912) and then as opera director in his home town (1913 - 1918). Equally important to his development were his summers as an assistant to director Siegfried Wagner and conductor Hans Richter at the Bayreuth Festival.

Parsifal (WWV 111) is a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is freely based on the 13th-century Middle High German chivalric romance Parzival of the Minnesänger Wolfram von Eschenbach and the Old French chivalric romance Perceval ou le Conte du Graal by the 12th-century trouvère Chrétien de Troyes, recounting different accounts of the story of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his spiritual quest for the Holy Grail.

This Original Jackets collection offers the opportunity to celebrate the art of Hans Knappertsbusch, held in the deepest affection by many of the musicians and singers who worked with him. He was considered by many as High Priest of Bayreuth, and accordingly this edition includes his 1951 and 1962 Bayreuth traversals of Parsifal as well as the heartwarming Vienna Meistersinger of 1950–51, the Munich Fidelio of 1961 and several highlights with notable opera stars of his time.

This Original Jackets collection offers the opportunity to celebrate the art of Hans Knappertsbusch, held in the deepest affection by many of the musicians and singers who worked with him. He was considered by many as High Priest of Bayreuth, and accordingly this edition includes his 1951 and 1962 Bayreuth traversals of Parsifal as well as the heartwarming Vienna Meistersinger of 1950–51, the Munich Fidelio of 1961 and several highlights with notable opera stars of his time.

This Original Jackets collection offers the opportunity to celebrate the art of Hans Knappertsbusch, held in the deepest affection by many of the musicians and singers who worked with him. He was considered by many as High Priest of Bayreuth, and accordingly this edition includes his 1951 and 1962 Bayreuth traversals of Parsifal as well as the heartwarming Vienna Meistersinger of 1950–51, the Munich Fidelio of 1961 and several highlights with notable opera stars of his time.

Hans Knappertsbusch (born March 12, 1888 in Elberfeld (today: Wuppertal); October 25, 1965 in Munich) was a German conductor.