There are certain musical
works that are so noble and human that,
after having finished listening, one
has the same feeling as when stepping
out of Finnish sauna, rosy-cheeked and
devoid of all misery. Die Meistersinger
von Nürnberg is such a work.
Every time I sit down to consume it
I have very high expectations – and
I am rarely let down. I can have objections
to this and that but the power and the
beauty of the music and the built-in
message - forget any references to the
Nazis - have such dignity that I can
overlook what deficiencies there are.
Truth to tell though, it is practically
impossible to find a recording of it
where everything works out one hundred
per cent. The present set – the first
ever studio recording of Die Meistersinger
– is no exception, but this has very
little to do with the execution of the
music.
Decca less than a decade
later were more or less outstanding
when it came to recording big forces
(Solti’s Rheingold, Karajan’s
Aida and Otello). However
at the beginning of the LP era they
were in great trouble getting good reproduction
of the orchestra, especially the strings,
which sound thin and wiry. One eventually
gets used to it and mentally starts
to imagine what it probably sounded
like in the recording venue, but one
can never get the impact of a good stereo
recording and the final outcome is smaller,
more congested, than one would wish.
In this particular case, as Mark Obert-Thorn
points out, there were other problems
as well: the beginning of some notes
were clipped and in some places some
bars were incorrectly repeated, faults
that obviously were inherent in the
original tapes. He has done what was
possible to adjust and we have to be
grateful for that. Warts and all, this
is so important a document that one
could have accepted even worse defects.
It was recorded in
Vienna with an Austro-German cast under
one of the legendary Wagnerians of the
era. With the Vienna Philharmonic and
the State Opera Chorus, we are in for
a performance in the old tradition,
with singers and musicians who knew
the score inside-out and for whom the
text had a meaning. For any large-scale
operatic production like this the conductor
is the pivot around whom everything
turns. Hans Knappertsbusch has often
been accused of over-indulgence and
controversial tempos – but not so here.
Myth has it that "Kna" could be slow,
bordering on the lethargic, but here
he is actually faster than many others
and there is a lightness and a rhythmic
spring in the step that makes this one
of the most youthful versions I have
heard. True, he can be very affectionate,
as in the prelude to Act III, where
he moulds the music lovingly in long
phrases, but as soon as David appears
we can literally see the apprentice
boy scurrying about. The famous quintet
in the same act is another moment of
stillness – it’s almost like a movie
sequence where the director freezes
the picture at a magical moment. As
I have already implied the big public
scenes can’t make the same impact as
on later recordings, but still the final
scene is excellent with the Vienna Phil
enjoying themselves in the apprentices’
jolly dance, the fanfares and the grave
solemnity when the masters arrive with
flying banners and the devotional Wach
auf! chorus.
And "Kna" has a near-ideal
cast at his disposal, down to the minor
roles among the masters. Here are legendary
names aplenty from the Golden Days of
the Vienna State Opera: Meyer-Welfing,
Majkut, Pröglhof, Pantscheff. When
we come to the big roles it is at once
obvious that there is very little four-square
plodding and speech-singing. This is
Wagnerian bel canto at its best. Head
and shoulders above the rest stands
Paul Schoeffler’s warm and human Hans
Sachs, beautiful of tone, natural sounding,
manly, authoritative and unaffected.
Rarely has Am Jordan Sankt Johannes
stand (CD3 tr. 2) been sung so well
and the great monologues are hard to
imagine better done. Just before the
quintet he delivers Ein Kind ward
hier geboren (CD4 tr.1) so lyrically
and with such focus on the text that
I draw parallels to his marginally older
compatriot Heinrich Schlusnus, a more
lyrical singer but with a similar voice
and approach. Norman Bailey on the Solti
set may have the same insight but has
a duller voice and a more wooden delivery,
Bernt Weikl (Sawallisch) sings well
but is more generalised and Theo Adam
(Karajan II) has an unattractive voice
– he sounds mean when he should be fatherly.
Otto Edelmann as Pogner
also radiates warmth and challenges
even Kurt Moll for beauty of tone and
Alfred Poell as Kothner also sings,
not only recites. Karl Dönch presents
Beckmesser as a fairly ridiculous person,
an approach I believe Wagner would have
liked, but he also sings very well,
without a trace of parody in the final
scene (CD4 tr. 9). As David Anton Dermota
with his mellifluous voice is ideal
and besides the beauty of tone he also
characterises well. His Lene, Else Schürhoff,
is indicated as soprano in the cast
list but hers is definitely a contralto
voice. She sounds rather matronly and
a bit unwieldy. The problem with her
is that she is Eva’s nurse and consequently
has to be rather mature; at the same
time she has an affair with David, who
is supposed to be young … Hilde Gueden’s
Eva is possibly the most lovely on records,
displaying the same silvery voice as
in her legendary recordings of Susanna,
Zerlina and Pamina. She is at her very
finest in O Sach! Mein Freund! (CD3
tr. 9).
There remains the Walther
of Gunther Treptow to be assessed, and
he is the stumbling-block of this set.
He is fairly good in Act I without rising
to the heights of, say, Sandor Konya,
the young René Kollo or Ben Heppner.
In Act II he is sorely strained in his
long solo and we have to be grateful
that he has little else of importance
to sing in this act. In the third act
his first attempt at Morgenlich leuchtend
(CD3 tr. 5) has pinched, almost strangulated
tone, but luckily when it comes to the
"real" Prize Song in the final scene
(CD4 tr.11) he seems to have gone through
a metamorphosis and the whole aria is
sung with bold, steady, heroic tone,
maybe not lyrical enough but a great
improvement on his singing earlier.
This is after all the real highlight
and what will remain in our memories.
For a good modern recording
I would so far opt for Sawallisch as
a middle-of-the-road reading with top-notch
singers, Kubelik and Karajan II are
also contenders but it seems that DG
have a trump card up the sleeve in the
forthcoming recording with Thielemann
conducting and with Bryn Terfel as Hans
Sachs. Whichever version you own or
plan to acquire, this old Knappertsbusch
may be the most authentic for both conducting
and singing – as long as you can accept
the ageing sound and disregard the less
than ingratiating singing of Treptow.
Most of all it is a wonderful tribute
to the art of Paul Schoeffler and his
deeply moving human portrayal of Hans
Sachs. In that respect it is a desert-island-set.
Göran Forsling
Vienna State Opera Chorus 
