Richard WAGNER (1813-1883)
Die Walküre: Act 1
René Kollo – Siegmund
Eva-Maria Bundschuh – Sieglinde
John Tomlinson – Hunding
London Philharmonic Orchestra/ Klaus Tennstedt
rec. live, Royal Festival Hall, 7 and 10 October 1991
LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA LPO0092 [69:41]
I was delighted to receive this performance for review. Tennstedt
is a conductor whom I regard with a feeling only just this side of idolatry.
I first heard him live in a performance of this same Wagner act in October
1981, exactly ten years before the one under review here, with Jessye Norman,
Robert Schunk and Marius Rintzler. From the mid 1980s, I attended every concert
he gave in London until his final ones in 1993. Ill health forced his retirement
at the—for a conductor—early age of 68 in 1994. He died in 1998.
The 1981 concert was broadcast (I have the tape a friend recorded while I
attended the event), so it would be wonderful to have this made available
at some stage, though I expect that the fee Madame Norman would ask to allow
its issue would make it financially unviable. Neither of the 1991 performances
was broadcast. At that time, the LPO were regularly recording their own concerts,
possibly with the intention of starting their own label, but the microphones
disappeared after a couple of years, so I assumed it was just too difficult
or too expensive to continue doing so.
I would think, though I do not know, that Tennstedt must have conducted Wagner
whilst at Dresden, Schwerin and Kiel before his international fame began in
the mid 1970s. In any case, as far as I am aware, Act 1 of Die Walküre
is the only complete act of a Wagner opera conducted by Tennstedt that survives
in a recording. Anyone who listens to this disc cannot but agree that this
is a deeply regrettable situation, because this performance is simply wonderful.
It is alive from the first note. The prelude portrays Siegmund fleeing through
the forest from the kinsmen of a man whom he had just killed to protect a
young woman from a forced marriage. It regularly surprises me how often in
performance it emerges as a stolid trudge rather than the terrifying flight
for life that it should be. Tennstedt, despite a moderate tempo, manages to
convey a real sense of a life-or-death pursuit. Here is one of the interesting
things about this performance: although, at over 69 minutes, it is longer
than any of the half dozen other recordings whose timings I was able to compare,
the sense of momentum in Tennstedt’s conducting means that it never
drags or even feels particularly slow.
The glory of the conducting lies in the way that every note is characterised
without ever becoming fussy or detracting from the momentum. I will give a
few examples, but you could pick any page in the score and find them. Immediately
after the prelude, listen to the cello phrases when Sieglinde enters: tentative
at first, but becoming increasingly confident and stirred by the sight of
the prostrate Siegmund. Wagner makes every phrase in the orchestra between
her entrance and Siegmund’s acceptance of the water she brings him chart
the emotional journey. Tennstedt brings those phrases to life with extraordinary
intensity. Or try the passage before Siegmund agrees to stay and await the
arrival of Hunding. Tennstedt catches in all its complexity the turmoil in
Siegmund’s mind as he wrestles with what he wants to do and what he
knows is sensible to do. To take an opposite extreme, the peroration at the
end of the act after Siegmund pulls the sword from the tree and the pair rush
off onto the night is played with tremendous excitement and sexual joy. Tennstedt
achieves these effects through absolute flexibility of tempo and acutely detailed
modulation of dynamics. In this he was one of the last who embodied the romantic
German school of conducting which came from Wagner himself, then through Nikisch
to Furtwängler. Today only Thielemann is really of this school, and he reminds
me more of Mengelberg in many ways. Although Thielemann’s Wagner is
wonderful, I get the impression of a rather cold, pre-planned imposition of
effects in the symphonic repertoire rather than a rhapsodic response to the
emotion of the moment. The LPO respond magnificently to Tennstedt’s
vision. One of the things I vividly remember from all his concerts was the
way in which members of the orchestra would regularly look at each other and
smile. They obviously adored him and knew that he was getting something very
special out of them.
The singers, although none would be a desert island choice, do not let the
side down. Kollo, one of the pre-eminent Wagner tenors of his time, was 54
in 1991 and had many years experience in this role behind him. The voice is
still is good condition and the top is solid and without strain, though his
vibrato was always a little wide and slow for my taste. I do not particularly
take to some of his sliding up into notes, though; this is not the use of
a proper portamento but an ugly imprecision of attack. Bundschuh, at 50, was
slightly younger than Kollo and also vocally well-preserved. Her timbre was
more solid than Kollo’s. Like he, she gives a very musical and accurate
performance without ever quite doing anything truly memorable. John Tomlinson
was younger still, at 45, and in 1991 had already begun his move from true
bass roles like Hunding to the bass-baritone roles such as Wotan and Sachs
in which he achieved such renown. He is on excellent form in this concert,
not as brutish as some Hundings, but with a tangible sense of danger right
from his entrance.
The recording is a little opaque at times, but the voices come over very well,
and any imperfections do not in any way impair the enjoyment. I have often
thought that while I was too young ever to have heard Furtwängler live, at
least I heard Tennstedt. This issue allows us to hear what is, so far, a unique
example of his way with a complete act of Wagner, and as such it is indispensable.
Paul Steinson
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