Wenn Der Wind

Deutsche Grammophon is lucky in that World War II didn't slow classical recordings in Germany as it did in the United States but stimulated them: It was essential for wartime morale. Thus, if you can get past any repugnance related to these recordings' genesis, there's a huge amount to enjoy. There's a disc of lieder by all the prewar greats (Franz Volker, Tiana Lemnitz, Erna Berger, and Heinrich Schlusnus), a disc of Wagner featuring young Hans Hotter, opera and operetta performances by Berger and Helge Roswaenge, and a disc showing how the German singers gave Italian opera a distinctively Nordic but highly communicative edge. The set is crowned by a complete Winterreise that was recorded by Peter Anders in 1945 (and sounds it): the cultivated tenor's anguished performance embodies a Germany facing the abyss. –David Patrick Stearns

This 1950 performance is the only live complete recording of The Ring conducted by the legendary Wilhelm Furtwängler. Although it has been available on several labels in the past, this is its first appearance at budget price. At last, this “crucial, living document,” as opera critic Robert Levine called it, has been made affordable by Falcon Neue Medien!

Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) is an opera, with music and libretto by Richard Wagner. Wagner claimed in his 1870 autobiography Mein Leben that he had been inspired to write "The Flying Dutchman" following a stormy sea crossing he made from Riga to London in July and August 1839, but in his 1843 Autobiographical Sketch Wagner acknowledged he had taken the story from Heinrich Heine's retelling of the legend in his 1834 satirical novel The Memoirs of Mister von Schnabelewopski (Aus den Memoiren des Herrn von Schnabelewopski). The central theme is redemption through love.