On the rare occasions
when I have been able to hear a Decca
post-war 78 or early LP on modest equipment
– the sort of equipment on which the
average man would have heard it back
in those days – I have been struck by
how lifelike and vivid it sounded. All
the more surprising, then, that people
of my generation had to get to know
these recordings with the seedy-sounding
strings of their Ace of Clubs incarnations,
not to speak of the fuzzy artificiality
of the "electronically enhanced
stereo" of their Eclipse successors.
Nor have Decca’s own more recent efforts
always been happy, their attempts to
extract a frequency response that isn’t
really there resulting in an unpleasant
stridency in, for example, the Erich
Kleiber "Rosenkavalier". I
should add that I am speaking of early
Deccas in general, not these particular
ones which I don’t remember hearing
before.
Whatever system Archipel
have adopted – they call it "Hi-end
restoration technology" – the results
are pretty good. The brass in the opening
"Ride of the Valkyries" leap
out of the speakers – it’s a thrilling
sound in itself. The strings are not
exactly silky, but they are certainly
not seedy either and have a convincingly
full-blooded quality. In short, the
recordings belie their years remarkably
and take me back to the days of my teenage
listening when loud meant bloody loud
and damn the neighbours!
In my teenage years,
though, I may not have been so responsive
to Hans Knappertsbusch’s patient unfolding
of these scores. Indeed, a little later,
I remember how dismayed we students
were when, following our complaints
that the university library copy of
"Parsifal" was worn out (what
we really wanted was to hear it played
faster), the librarian, bound by economics,
simply bought a new copy of "Hans-dead-slow-Knappertsbusch",
1951.
Tempi are slow,
certainly; the Valkyries do not whip
and goad their steeds, they soar majestically
above a sea of detail, the rhythmic
propulsion coming from within the music,
not applied from without. Rienzi has
dignity and nobility wherever the tawdry
music allows (the introduction, obviously,
but a surprising amount of the rest);
Senta sings dolefully but the Dutchman’s
vessel is soon riding out a surging
seascape. Slow, then, but never heavy.
The pilgrims at the start of Tannhäuser
have joy as well as dignity to their
step and the Venusberg music packs a
great punch.
About the Siegfried
"Forest Murmurs" I am not
so sure. After so much orchestral music
Lechtleitner’s rather voice, reedy in
piano and barking in forte, was an unpleasant
intrusion and he is recorded far to
close. Surely Siegfried himself should
be murmuring against the variegated
orchestral backdrop, and this is only
possible when he is on stage, behind
the orchestra, not up front, obscuring
it, as here. Since this passage can
now be heard in the context of Knappertsbusch’s
Bayreuth "Ring", only completists
will want this.
The spell having been
broken, I found the Parsifal prelude
too slow, the phrases just sitting side
by side. In the theatre it no doubt
came off – the official Bayreuth Parsifals
under Knappertsbusch from 1951 and 1962
are legendary and at least four other
performances are available from various
sources. Here we are reminded, for the
first time on this CD, that Knappertsbusch
didn’t always find it easy to warm up
in the studio. Still, the first four
tracks of this disc more than justify
purchase, for they overwhelmingly reflect
the genius of the composer in remarkably
good sound.
Grouches? Well, I have
to say that, in the cases where I have
an alternative performance under Furtwängler,
it does seem to be a tad more overwhelming
still. Without hustling the music, Furtwängler
often manages to take to the air while
Knappertsbusch keeps his feet firmly,
if splendidly, on the ground. How spoilt
for choice people were in those days!
The other grouch is
the presentation, if a mere track list,
recording dates and a photo of the conductor
can be dignified by this term. The only
other information vouchsafed is that
the recordings are "issued from
the original sources". I am sure
Archipel have no intention to mislead,
but some innocent people are going to
think "original sources" means
the original masters, yet I’d stake
my life that Decca does not hand
these over readily to Tom, Dick, Harry
or Archipel. Presumably they mean original
copies of the LPs, and they’ve certainly
made a good job of it, but why can’t
they take a look at the sort of annotation
offered by Naxos and Living Era and
follow suit?
Christopher Howell
Franz Lechleitner (tenor)* 
