Wagner Zubin Metha

Bailey's … is the most rounded portrayal to date … the set as a whole is a considerable achievement, a worthy addition to the Decca/Solti Wagner discograohy.

All of Wagner’s operas require a sure hand in the pit: no run-of-the-mill répétiteur will do. But two works, in particular, depend on the conductor as much as anyone on stage for success in performance Tristan and Parsifal. By choosing these two for the first complete Wagner dramas he’s committed to disc, Thielemann is letting us know just how important Wagner’s music is to him and how seriously he wants to be taken as a Wagner interpreter. With this new Parsifal, the conductor demonstrates that he’s a Wagnerian with a point of view, and a master of the composer’s huge musicodramatic structures.

This is a fine album for Wagner fans who want to check out the composer's non-operatic output. The Symphony in C (written at age 19) may be familiar, and is actually available in other CDs. However, the Symphony in E, Wagner's uncompleted creation from age 21, may not. This CD features Wagner's 1882 revision of the Symphony in C which was performed two months before his death. Wagner completed the first movement of the Symphony in E but only 29 bars of the second movement. In 1887, a performance version based on these 29 bars was prepared by conductor Felix Mottl at the request of Wagner's widow Cosima. This performance version of the second movement is included on this disk.

George Szell was the greatest opera conductor who never recorded a complete opera. Early in his career, he decided to leave the opera house because he was unable to work with what he considered to be the compromising conditions of modern opera production. The most tantalizing recording he never conducted was the complete "Ring" for London. The honor went instead to Sir Georg Solti, and although Solti's work was hardly inconsiderable, this exceptional disc gives us some sense of what we lost.

So this is, on the whole, a fine performance. The only other commercial recording of Die Meistersinger to come along in the last couple of decades has been Sawallisch's (for my review see Fanfare 18:3). And that one, despite its many virtues, is seriously disfigured by Weikl's Sachs. So if you want a Meistersinger in up-to-the-minute digital sound, you would do better with Solti. I must add, however, that while the sound on this new recording is very full and clear, it lacks warmth.

Early on in his career, Wagner composed two symphonies, both of which are included on this disc. The Symphony in C, which he wrote when he was just nineteen years old, is heavily influenced by Beethoven in its character, mood, and instrumentation. Written two years later, in 1834, the Symphony in E was left unfinished, Wagner completing only the first movement and thirty bars of the second. The completed version recorded here was prepared by the conductor Felix Mottl more than fifty years later at the request of Wagners widow, Cosima. The two marches on this disc are the composers most obvious contributions to the genre of pomp and circumstance.

Featuring a true golden-age cast, this 1967 Radio Broadcast hums and bubbles with invigorating warmth and unquenchable passion under the sprightly baton of Rafael Kubelik. Thomas Stewart is a intelligent Sachs, who brings real weight and power to the great Act III monologue but who retains real lyricism for the role's more tender moments. It would be inconceivable that Gundula Janowitz's creamy-voiced Eva would pass him over if it were not for the ardent, fiery Walther of Sándor Kónya, who gives voice to an ethereal rendition of the Prize song. Thomas Hemsley is an nuanced Beckmesser thankfully devoid of caricature, and Franz Crass is a warm, fatherly Pogner. Brigitte Fassbaender may be the most sensuous Magdalena on record, and is paired expertly by the great Gerhard Unger, at his considerable best as David.

Georg Solti was a Hungarian conductor known for his work with the Chicago, London, and Paris Symphony Orchestras. During his more than 50 years in the classical music industry, he recorded more than 40 operas and made more than 250 recordings with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Solti was influenced and taught by some of the most well-known composers and conductors in the industry, including Béla Bartok, Leo Weiner, Zoltan Kodaly, and Ernst von Dohnanyi. Richard Strauss was one of his favorite composers; on the composer's 85th birthday, Solti performed Der Rosenkavalier.