Firstly a note on what we have. The
principal torso is the remains of Beecham's
1936 Götterdämmerung; a chunk
of Act I is extant though one disc has
been lost and a patch from a 1937 Melchior
performance has been utilised to cover
a gap after Brunnhilde's jag'st du mich
hin. Act II is not fully extant. Patches
from the 1950 Furtwängler performance
have been spliced into scene one and
a Habich passage is from the 1936 Met
(Bodanzky) though Weber and Habich were
captured singing for Beecham in 1936.
The Immolation Scene from Act III derives
from commercial discs made in Berlin
under Blech in 1928. There are also
excerpts from Frida Leider's Die Walküre
and Siegfried, once more with Blech
but this time from 1927. Quite a complicated
procedure then and one that has been
accomplished with considerable care
and firm supporting documentary information
(a Guild speciality thankfully, otherwise
hacks like me would be floundering around).
The man at the helm
is Beecham, a fluid, elastic but tensile
Wagnerian, eloquently stressing the
cantilever of the string melodies and
bringing the supportive cushion of the
winds to the fore. His cast is stellar
and one that will be broadly known from
other Covent Garden and Met performances.
We hear Weber, "nasty" of tone and insinuating
in Hier sitz zur Wacht as indeed we
can hear Thorborg's Waltraute. With
every newly released disc Thorborg's
stature as a Wagnerian (especially -
she was superb in other repertoire of
course) grows. Elastic lyricism subjected
to strong rhythmic control inform her
exchanges with Leider in Act I Scene
3. The characterisation is powerful,
the histrionic hauteur unmistakeable.
For all the problems
and changeable balances, scrunches and
stage noises we can clearly appreciate
the theatrical drama of the Leider-Thorborg
scenes; Leider is regal and in consistently
compelling form. Melchior's theatrical
projection allied to Olympian vocalism
is as ever magnificent but so in its
more inevitably circumscribed way is
Janssen's Gunther. As we've heard before
in Guild's Met broadcast series Janssen's
very elegance and almost refined impersonation
is an acute musico-psychological perception.
List is full of spittle and sawdust
hectoring in his Act II Scene 4 exchanges
Dir hilft kein Hirn. Note here also
the stupendous Concorde-curve of Beecham's
moulding of the string lines (try from
about two minutes into this scene).
Problematic though
this recording is the engineering time
has been well spent. The bonuses are
exciting enough in their own way - the
Act III Immolation Scene from Berlin
and the slightly earlier 1927 extracts.
The catalogue numbers are given in the
body of the text. Note that in the former
Guild have spliced a full orchestral
finale (not included in the commercial
disc) so that if you possess HMV D2025-26
or any subsequent re-releases you will
be in for a little surprise. The extract
is so far unidentified.
Period photographs
of the performers grace the booklet
and there are synopses, biographies
and notes. An imposing addition to the
1930s Wagnerian discography - and in
better-than-hoped-for sound.
Jonathan Woolf
Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House,
Covent Garden/Thomas Beecham 
