This landmark recording – the first by EMI using the new technology
of recording tape – nearly didn’t happen. Furtwängler was smarting
under what he saw as producer Walter Legge’s betrayal in giving
the Die Zauberflöte recording contract to Karajan,
while Legge was busy undermining Furtwängler as yesterday’s
man in order to promote Karajan as the new face of EMI classical.
It had been fifteen years since Furtwängler had first conducted
Kirsten Flagstad and fallen in love with her voice. Alongside
Frieda Leider, Flagstad was considered the reigning Isolde of
the century, but she was now 57 years old and already showing
the first signs of poor health. Time was running out to catch
her famous interpretation for the first and last time in a studio
recording. Her top notes above B-flat had always been insecure
and she doubted whether she could reproduce a top C often enough
to provide the two required in the Act II “telegramme duet”
when the lovers ecstatically greet each other. It was proving
difficult to find a suitable and available Brangäne; in the
end Flagstad repaid a debt of gratitude to her Swedish friend
Blanche Thebom who was thus cast to no-one other than Flagstad’s
great satisfaction. Flagstad’s natural partner, Lauritz Melchior
had left the Metropolitan in a huff, having been denied his
Silver Anniversary celebration by new General Manager Rudolf
Bing, and gone into semi-retirement exile in Hollywood – so
who was to be Tristan?
However, all these difficulties were either overcome or circumvented
in order to produce a recording which did honour to both the
conductor and the producer. As Furtwängler said to Legge, “My
name will be remembered for this, but yours should be.” In truth,
the honours are evenly divided.
Despite these difficulties, there were, after all, many advantages
which augured well for the success of the enterprise. The Philharmonia
Orchestra, formed by Legge in 1945 was in superb shape and enjoyed
an excellent symbiotic relationship with Furtwängler. The new
tape technology allowed the conductor to mould the shape and
sustain the momentum in great arcs instead of the four minute
takes demanded by 78s in music with which he was intimately
acquainted and of which he had vast experience. Flagstad was
still in huge, rich voice if somewhat matronly of tone. Legge’s
new wife, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was engaged to sing the two
brief high Cs which were seamlessly spliced in such that no-one
could tell – and only pedants care today. Thebom proved to be
remarkably fine as Brangäne even if the voice lacks body in
the “watchtower music”. Ludwig Suthaus gave the performance
of his life as Tristan, his baritonal sound first suggesting
virility and heroism, then in Act III collapsing into the agony
of almost bestial incomprehension. A young Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
portrays Kurwenal subtly as a noble, bewildered soul, loyal
to the point of naivety. Rudolf Schock sings mellifluously as
both the Seaman and the Shepherd, while veteran Bayreuth regular
Josef Greindl delivered a cavernous, slightly nasal, but deeply
moving, King Mark.
The chief glories of this recording for many continue to be
both Flagstad’s magisterial, voluminous Isolde and the burnished
glow of the orchestral playing under Furtwängler’s ecstatic
direction. Listen to the rage and scorn of Flagstad’s voice
as she sings the words “Zerschlag es dies trotzige Schiff” and
“Er schwur mit tausend Eide”. From the soaring, yearning sweep
of the overture to the ethereal “Liebestod”, the conductor’s
grasp of pulse and flow of this wondrous music is an organic
marvel. If you want to hear the conductor and orchestra making
great art in perfect harmony, sample the “Sühnetrank” scene
where Isolde proffers Tristan the supposedly poisoned goblet,
or the delicate “Nachtmusik” as the hunt recedes into the forest
prior to Tristan’s arrival for the lovers’ tryst. Big moments
in this recording such as these have always been praised but
another listen to them in the revealing, detailed sound provided
by these newly re-mastered Pristine discs, reminded me how skilfully
Furtwängler does other things so well, too; for example, how
he crafts and sculpts the conversations between Isolde and Brangäne
and Isolde and Tristan in Act I. The whole drama pants and breathes
just as Tristan alternately raves and philosophises in his febrile
delirium.
Remember, this recording is now sixty years old, yet it is here
given new life in Pristine’s “Ambient Stereo”. The effect is
not at all unnatural or artificial: Andrew Rose has removed
pre-echo, enhanced top and bottom frequencies, corrected pitch
fluctuations and added just enough ambience to an engineering
job which was already superb in its day such that you would
swear this was early, narrow stereo. There is still a hint of
fizz in the strings yet by and large the sonic detail is both
spacious and detailed and the original bloom on the sound remains
intact. One can even hear Furtwängler gently hissing and exhaling
in rhythm with the music as he labours to infuse his musicians
with his vision of the score.
Hitherto, the reason for the legendary status of this recording
has eluded me, but Andrew Rose’s revitalisation has finally
allowed me to understand exactly how and why it is as good as
its reputation would have it. If you have this recording in
the EMI GROC series or even the Regis bargain issue, fairly
clumsily transferred from LPs you need not rush to replace it,
but this Pristine re-mastering is a revelation.
Ralph Moore
Masterwork Index: Tristan
and Isolde
Isolde - Kirsten Flagstad (soprano); Tristan - Ludwig Suthaus (tenor);
Brangäne - Blanche Thebom (mezzo); König Marke - Josef Greindl (bass);
Kurwenal - Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone); Seeman/Hirt - Rudolf Schock (tenor); Melot - Edgar Evans (baritone); Steuermann - Rhoderick Davies (baritone).