Richard WAGNER (1813-1883)
Der Ring des Nibelungen (1876)
(Das Rheingold [145.32]1; Die Walküre
[228.56] 2; Siegfried [238.05] 3;
Götterdämmerung [265.09] 4)
package also includes:-
Siegfried Idyll [18.20]5; Kinderkatechismus
[2.22]6; Rienzi Overture [11.36]7;
Der Fliegende Holländer Overture [10.31]7;
Tannhäuser Overture [14.14] 7 and Venusberg
Music [13.07]78
blu-ray audio CD of complete performance [877.42]
DVD of television documentary The Golden Ring
[87.33]
reprint of John Culshaw: Ring Resounding
text and commentary9 of Deryck Cooke: A Guide
to Der Ring des Nibelungen [140.52]
George London (baritone) - Wotan [Das Rheingold]; Hans
Hotter (bass) - Wotan [Die Walküre, Siegfried];
Birgit Nilsson (soprano) – Brünnhilde; Wolfgang Windgassen (tenor)
– Siegfried; James King (tenor) – Siegmund; Régine Crespin (soprano)
– Sieglinde; Gottlob Frick (bass) - Hunding, Hagen; Dietrich
Fischer-Dieskau (baritone) – Gunther; Gustav Neidlinger (baritone)
– Alberich; Set Svanholm (tenor) – Loge; Paul Kuen (tenor) -
Mime [Das Rheingold]; Gerhard Stolze (tenor) - Mime
[Siegfried]; Kirsten Flagstad (soprano) - Fricka [Das
Rheingold]; Christa Ludwig (mezzo) Fricka [Die Walküre],
Waltraute [Götterdämmerung]; Claire Watson (soprano)
- Freia, Gutrune; Waldemar Kmentt (tenor) – Froh; Eberhard Waechter
(baritone) – Donner; Jean Madeira (alto) - Erda [Das Rheingold];
Marga Höffgen (alto) - Erda [Siegfried]; Walter Kreppel (baritone)
– Fasolt; Kurt Böhme (bass) – Fafner; Oda Balsborg (soprano)
- Woglinde [Das Rheingold]; Lucia Popp (soprano) -
Woglinde [Götterdämmerung]; Hetty Plümacher (mezzo)
- Wellgunde [Das Rheingold]; Gwyneth Jones (soprano)
- Wellgunde [Götterdämmerung]; Ira Malaniuk (mezzo)
- Flosshilde [Das Rheingold]; Maureen Guy (mezzo) -
Flosshilde [Götterdämmerung]; Brigitte Fassbaender
(mezzo) - Waltraute [Die Walküre]; Berit Lindholm (soprano)
– Helmwige; Helga Dernesch (soprano) – Ortlinde; Vera Schlosser
(soprano) – Gerhilde; Helen Watts (alto) - Schwertleite, 1st
Norn; Vera Little (alto) - Siegrune; Claudia Hellman (alto)
– Rossweisse; Marilyn Tyler (alto) - Grimgerde; Grace Hoffman
(mezzo) - 2nd Norn; Anita Välkki (soprano) - 3rd Norn; Joan
Sutherland (soprano) – Woodbird; Vienna State Opera Chorus4;
Singverein der Geschellschaft der Musikfreunde7;
Wiener Sängerknaben6;
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Georg Solti
rec. Sofiensaal, Vienna, September-October 19581;
October-November 19652; May and October-November
19623; May-June and October-November 19644;
14 November 19655; March 19686; October
196178; February 19679
Remastered and released August 2012
DECCA 0289 478 3702 2 [17 CDs, 1 DVD, 1 Blu-Ray Audio Disc]
It comes as something of a shock to realise that this pioneer
recording of Wagner’s Ring is some fifty years old.
Decca have now issued it again in a luxury package. It includes
the complete recording and some supplementary CDs. To these
it adds a reprint of producer John Culshaw’s account in Ring
Resounding of the process by which the massive tetralogy
was committed to disc. You will also get a complete text of
Deryck Cooke’s analysis of the music, complete libretti, translations
and other essays. The supplementary material constitutes three
substantial volumes and the result, packaged together with a
fourth volume containing the recording itself, is issued to
commemorate the 200th anniversary of Wagner’s birth and the
100th anniversary of the birth of the conductor. It also anticipates
the spate of reissues from other companies which may be expected
as the recordings themselves come out of copyright.
It might be thought that many readers of this review may be
familiar with these performances, but there will be many to
whom the recordings will nevertheless be entirely new; and the
opportunity can also be taken to make some comparisons of this
pioneering studio recording with its successors.
When this was first issued, there were no other recordings of
Wagner’s Ring in the catalogue; now there are dozens.
That said, there are surprisingly few purpose-made recordings
even today. This is not surprising, given the expense and complexity
of setting up a studio project. There are those who find that
the issue of ‘live’ recordings from broadcasts or the opera
house have an immediacy that studio session cannot match. The
Ring is particularly prone to stage noises - especially
in some modern productions - and suffers even more from the
minor and major imperfections that can arise in the course of
a live performance. For that reason, I am ignoring all the recordings
which derive from live performances even when these have been
‘patched’ with passages taken from rehearsals. I will concentrate
purely on those recordings which come from the studio and should
therefore be expected to be note-perfect throughout. I am aware
that this will exclude from consideration some major sets, including
both of those by Wilhelm Furtwängler, the superb set in English
conducted by Reginald Goodall, Karl Böhm’s and Daniel Barenboim’s
Bayreuth cycles, as well as many others that have found critical
approval over the years. One has to draw the line somewhere.
Shortly after the Solti Ring was completed, Herbert
von Karajan began a DG cycle with the Berlin Philharmonic as
an adjunct to his stage performances at the Salzburg Festival.
There were no further studio recordings until the digital era,
when the East German company Eurodisc committed to CD a set
conducted by Marek Janowski. This was followed by an EMI set
conducted by Bernard Haitink, recorded at the same time as his
Covent Garden performances but with the Bavarian Radio orchestra
(reviewed for MusicWeb by Göran Forsling (review));
and another from DG conducted by James Levine based around his
performances at the Metropolitan Opera. There have been no others
since, and given the expense involved in such a massive undertaking
we should not perhaps expect any.
The present Das Rheingold is dominated by the superlative
performance of Gustav Neidlinger as Alberich. John Culshaw does
not mention the fact in Ring Resounding, but in his
incomplete and posthumously published autobiography Putting
the record straight it is amazing to learn that he was
put under considerable pressure to use Otakar Kraus (the resident
Alberich at Covent Garden) instead of Neidlinger. Kraus, as
can be heard from live recordings, was good in the role but
Neidlinger is simply great. He has a nobility of tone that makes
the Nibelung into a tragic figure as well as a villain, and
his delivery of the curse is blood-curdling. When he steals
the gold, Wagner specifies in the score that “Alberich’s mocking
laughter is heard.” Usually, if we get a laugh at all, it is
a generalised snarl or shout of derision; but Neidlinger has
noticed that when Alberich’s mocking laughter is heard again
as Mime is killed in Siegfried, the laughter is a notated
version of the Nibelungs’ hammering motif; and that is what
he gives us here. It works superbly, even if this is the only
point in the set when notes that Wagner did not actually write
are added to the score. Comparisons with his rivals in the other
studio recordings – Zoltán Kélémen for Karajan vicious rather
than heroic, Theo Adam for Haitink unsteady in sustained passages,
Ekkehard Wlaschiha for Levine rather lachrymose in his lamenting
passages, and Siegmund Nimsgern for Janowski almost too heroic,
serve only to underline Neidlinger’s superiority which remains
unchallenged after some fifty years.
In the opening scene he is teamed with the three Rheintochter.
One of these, Ira Malaniuk, was a famous Fricka and seems to
have been engaged not so much on her own account but as a cover
in case Kirsten Flagstad fell ill or was unwilling to take the
latter role. She has a commanding presence as Flosshilde which
underlines her underlying sense of seriousness as opposed to
her more light-hearted sisters. These are taken by Oda Balsborg
and Hetty Plumacher, two regulars at the Vienna State Opera
at the time but neither of whom advanced much beyond supporting
roles. When Decca came to record Götterdämmerung five
years later, these roles were taken over by Lucia Popp and Gwyneth
Jones, both of whom became world renowned for much more than
supporting roles. In 1958 Decca were presumably not prepared
to fund such extravagances in casting. Balsborg and Plumacher
are fine; although in Ring Resounding Culshaw complains
that there were passages when one or the other of the Rhinemaidens
were out of tune, no such problems are apparent in the recording
as completed.
This brings us to the vexed question of consistency of casting
throughout the four Ring operas. Even in cycles given
in the opera house over a period of a week or two, it is not
uncommon to find different singers undertaking some parts from
one evening to another – either because of the non-availability
of some individual singers, or to spare them strain. Sometimes
this can be positively desirable. It would be odd indeed to
find the mezzo-soprano who sings the major role of Waltraute
in Götterdämmerung undertaking the same part in the
final Act of Die Walküre, where she is merely one of
a collection of eight Valkyries who act as a sort of semi-chorus.
If she did, it would be difficult for the singer to avoid overpowering
her companions - even though in Die Walküre she is
drawn in a more sympathetic light, in a manner than anticipates
her later resolve to be the only Valkyrie to visit the exiled
Brünnhilde. In this Ring, recorded over a period of
seven years, there are more changes of cast from one opera to
another than might be considered desirable. The replacement
of Kirsten Flagstad in 1958 by Christa Ludwig in 1965 was necessitated
by Flagstad’s death; but of the eight solo singers in Rheingold
who appear in later episodes of the cycle, no fewer than six
are re-cast in the sets recorded later – the only two who remain
unchanged are Neidlinger and Böhme. On the other hand, Karajan’s
cycle has even more changes of cast, with two Brünnhildes and
two Siegfrieds as well as two Wotans and two Mimes.
One member of the Rheingold cast who is replaced in
later episodes is George London as Wotan, where Hans Hotter
takes on the mantle of the role in Walküre and Siegfried.
Hotter was one of the great Wotans in the period following the
Second World War, but by the 1960s his voice was showing distinct
signs of wear. His vibrato could be unsteady, and the
bass orientation of his tessitura could make upper
notes sound ‘woofy’ although he never shows signs of strain
even in the highest register. There are times in this set where
the unsteadiness is more obvious than others – the scene with
Mime is probably the worst offender in this respect, where Culshaw
notes that he seemed to be running short of voice – but his
intelligent reaction to the text and his gentle inflection of
the lyrical passages remains a model. Culshaw says that the
part of Wotan in Rheingold “never really suited” him
and that this was why George London was chosen for that opera
– but one suspects that the real reason was simply that Hotter
was unavailable at that time, being under contract elsewhere.
London could never be accused of being gentle in his inflections
- even when he is talking in his sleep in his opening phrases,
he sounds wide awake - but he was not an unintelligent singer
and his response to the text is vivid. He is magnificent when
commanding Donner not to kill the giants, and sounds suitably
overawed by Erda’s warning. In other Wagnerian roles, such as
the Dutchman or Amfortas, he could be unpleasantly lachrymose
when required to sound emotional - as he is indeed as Wotan
in Erich Leinsdorf’s 1961 studio Walküre - but there
is no call for this in Rheingold and he certainly sounds
more authentically Wagnerian than Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (for
Karajan in Rheingold) and less grittily unsteady than
Theo Adam (for Janowski). James Morris (for both Levine and
Haitink) is the equal of London in Rheingold but loses
points to Hotter for subtlety in the later operas, as does Thomas
Stewart who takes over there from Fischer-Dieskau for Karajan.
Kirsten Flagstad was the great Wagnerian soprano of the period
1935-50, and assuming the mezzo-soprano role of Fricka in Rheingold
she remains every inch a commanding presence. Christa Ludwig
- who took over the part for Solti after Flagstad’s death- is
mellower, but has a sense of presence which sustains a high
level of drama. By comparison Josephine Veasey (for Karajan)
is plainer and less involved; Ludwig (again, twenty years later)
for Levine is older and more worn of tone; Yvonne Minton for
Janowski is good and solid but slightly placid; and Marjana
Lipovšek for Haitink does not have Flagstad’s or Ludwig’s nobility.
In the roles of the minor gods and goddesses, Viennese stalwarts
Waldemar Kmentt, Eberhard Waechter and Claire Watson have good
presence and don’t let the side down. Jean Madeira, also a fine
singer, is properly stentorian as Erda; she also is replaced
in Siegfried by Martha Höffgen, who sounds remarkably
similar in tone if slightly less secure at the top of her range
- in what is some ridiculously high writing up to A-flat for
a deep contralto. Walter Kreppel, another member of the Vienna
State Opera at the period, is firmly resonant at Fasolt. There
is more light and shade in the sometimes lyrically expressive
part than we are given here, and we don’t really feel sympathy
for the lovelorn giant as we should. The scene between the giants
and Wotan lacks a degree of involvement here, just where Wagner’s
music also tends to sag. A singer like Martti Talvela (for Karajan)
manages to lift the drama where it is needed.
The role of Loge has tended to attract two quite distinct kinds
of singer: either a character tenor (like Gerhard Stolze for
Karajan) or a heldentenor taking a step back from heroics
(like Siegfried Jerusalem for Levine). Loge has some quite lyrical
singing to do, as in his narration describing his search for
one who would forswear love. For this reason Janowski casts
Peter Schreier, a Mozartian tenor who also undertook Strauss
roles to good effect. Svanholm was a heldentenor who
was by 1958 nearing the end of his career, but he still had
the lyric resources to give full measure to the part and his
voice is naturally more honeyed than the sometimes thin-toned
Schreier.
Gerhard Stolze sings Mime in Siegfried for both Solti
and Karajan, and although he is better for Karajan he is definitely
something of an acquired taste. His flickering almost Sprechstimme
delivery is involving enough in the character role of Mime but
misses totally the lyrical intensity of Loge for Karajan; and
in the Solti Siegfried he delivers the most blood-curdling
whooping sounds when Mime is directed to cackle during his scene
with Siegfried. Wagner specifically asks here for a high-pitched
“hi!-hi!-hi!” on top G or G-sharp, and that is exactly what
Stolze does for Karajan but for Solti the sound is not only
not what Wagner demands but sounds totally inauthentic.
One of the adjuncts to this set comes in the form of the complete
original reviews in the Gramophone, and it is interesting
to note that Alec Robertson there similarly picks out this passage
for adverse comment. Culshaw says that there were some passages
in the Ring that he would have liked to record again,
and this should most definitely have been one of them. One might
wish that Decca had stuck with Paul Kuen as Mime throughout
– his tenor did not lack character but had a much more secure
sense of style than Stolze displays – and he is suitably woebegone
in his little scene in Rheingold. Heinz Zednik (for
Levine) is in the same sort of mould as Stolze, but uses his
voice with a much surer sense of what is appropriate; Peter
Schreier (for Janowski in Siegfried) simply lacks the
pungent sense of character that one finds in his rivals; Peter
Haage (for Haitink) is a bit wild.
So onwards to Die Walküre. In the First Act we encounter
James King as Siegmund. His performance has come in for a good
deal of stick over the years by critics who compare his performance
unfavourably with his live recording for Karl Böhm made at Bayreuth
at around the same time. Complaints have centred around a supposed
lack of commitment and intelligent shading of the text. I really
don’t feel that. He produces a stream of golden tone which not
only thrills by his emotional ardour but also can be refined
down to a heartbreaking sense of loss. King was at the peak
of his form at the time of this recording – he could sometimes
be rather laid-back, as I recall from a live Turandot
at Covent Garden in the late 1960s – and his reading here has
to my mind more heroic ring than Reiner Goldberg (for Haitink),
Gary Lakes (for Levine) or the young Siegfried Jerusalem (for
Janowski). His only real rival on disc is Jon Vickers (for Karajan)
who certainly delves into the words with more intelligence but
has a less naturally ingratiating voice.
As his sister Régine Crespin is quite simply superb, thrillingly
full-toned and every inch the heroic figure she should be. Gundula
Janowitz (for Karajan) is as beautiful as always, but she simply
does not convince the listener that she could drug Hunding in
order to elope with her twin brother – this Sieglinde would
simply not have had the nerve – or that she could imply to his
face that her husband is a coward. Jessye Norman (for both Levine
and Janowski) most certainly could, but one gets the feeling
that she would have done a good deal more than simply imply
anything. The only soprano in a studio recording who comes close
to rivalling Crespin is Cheryl Studer (for Haitink) but she
is sabotaged by Goldberg’s inexpressive Siegmund and Haitink’s
less than ecstatically impassioned conducting.
Crespin also appears as Brünnhilde in the Karajan set (for Die
Walküre only) and this can only be regarded as a serious
mistake. She sounds seriously over-strained throughout, and
her final address to Wotan gives us a distressing picture of
a voice pushed beyond its limits. It is no surprise that Karajan
turned to Helga Dernesch for the rest of the cycle (after Christa
Ludwig refused a request from him), although she too begins
to show signs of wear in places. In hindsight it is clear to
see that she would in a few years return to the mezzo repertoire
in which she excelled. Karajan’s experiments with casting were
notorious, and as we will see with Siegfried his habit
of pushing singers beyond their comfort zones could be disastrous.
There is not the slightest danger of disaster with Birgit Nilsson’s
Brünnhilde here. For a period of twenty years and more she was
the singer of the role in opera houses throughout the
world, and her voice, steady as a rock and never showing the
slightest sense of strain, remains a miracle to hear, always
strong and firm and never ever making an ugly sound. None of
the singers of the role on the other sets comes close to matching
her. Jeanine Altmeier (for Janowski) gives us a smallish voice
nicely produced and steady but lacking in punch; Hildegard Behrens
(for Levine) is intelligent and hard-working but lacks the sheer
sense of glamour that one finds with Nilsson; and Eva Marton
(for Haitink) is disastrous, at once loud and unsteady. There
have been worse Brünnhildes to be found on the stages of the
world’s opera houses, but Marton is pretty low down the league
– which is topped unassailably by the marvellous Nilsson, whose
voice has never been matched and is captured here in its prime
and under ideal circumstances. There are those who prefer her
live recording with Karl Böhm - who has many of the same singers
as Solti - for its supposedly greater nuances, but the Bayreuth
balance for Böhm cannot begin to match the carefully shaded
studio recording that Culshaw and his engineers give us here.
The Valkyries in the final Act are a mixed bunch, as always,
including some voices of greater strength than others. Even
so, rarely can we have heard a more stellar line-up than here
with two future world-class Brünnhildes (Berit Lindholm and
Helga Dernesch), and the incomparable Brigitte Fassbaender and
Helen Watts among the participants. The other four don’t let
them down, either. Gottlob Frick is a good Hunding, properly
challenging in the Second Act and with rock-solid tone; and
his offstage horn - about which Culshaw is so amusing in Ring
Resounding - was worth all the trouble the producers went
to in recruiting a proper Alpine horn - unfortunately accompanied
by its amateur player to the sessions – it proved difficult
to persuade him to hand the instrument over. No other set manages
to get anything like the remarkable sound we have here.
In Siegfried we encounter Wolfgang Windgassen, who
has also come in for a share of criticism over the years. Culshaw
himself admits that he was not the first choice for the part;
indeed he was a last-minute substitute when Ernst Kozub, who
had originally been contracted for the role, proved inadequate.
Culshaw suppresses Kozub’s name in his book, and indeed deliberately
misleads the reader by implying that Kozub was previously unknown
to him. He had in fact already appeared (as Melot) in Culshaw’s
production of Tristan und Isolde conducted by Solti.
It might well be that Kozub could have sued for libel given
the unflattering depiction of his inadequacies given in the
book, but given what one has heard of his voice elsewhere one
cannot imagine that he would ever have been more than an adequate
Siegfried. Windgassen could be lazy, and although I never saw
him on stage I have been told that he could also be slapdash
and resort to deliberately ‘sending up’ moments like “Das ist
kein Mann!”. Although he does not have a supremely heroic voice
like Lauritz Melchior in the 1930s - he is sometimes slightly
soft-centred - he is excellent in the forging song and rises
superbly to the challenges both here and in Götterdämmerung.
René Kollo (for Janowski) is nothing like as pleasant to listen
to, and Reiner Goldberg (for Levine) is even worse. The only
real challenger to Windgassen is Siegfried Jerusalem (for Haitink)
who also does not have a naturally heroic voice but manages
what he does have well and impresses one as being heroic even
when he isn’t. Helge Brilioth (for Karajan in Götterdämmerung)
is good – his performing career in the 1970s was short, although
at his best he was convincingly full-voiced – but Jess Thomas
(for Karajan in Siegfried) is unfortunately another
example of Karajan simply pushing a good singer too far too
fast. Thomas was a superb Lohengrin and I remember
him with pleasure in Meistersinger and Tristan
at Covent Garden. Unfortunately the forging scene simply demands
too much of what was essentially a strong lyric voice. At about
the same time Alberto Remedios at Sadler’s Wells was managing
to sing the role with a similar sort of voice; but he was helped
by Goodall’s sympathetic and less forceful conducting. Even
then his voice did not survive the strain unscathed.
In the Second Act of Siegfried we encounter the Waldvogel
of Joan Sutherland, which was described at the time as “a piece
of ritzy casting”. That said, it was not absurd; she had indeed
sung the role a number of times in her earlier career at Covent
Garden. One finds it hard to imagine a voice more perfectly
suited to the small role. Certainly none of her rivals on disc,
even the delectable Kathleen Battle for Levine, really match
the effect of a voice like Sutherland’s in this music. Complaints
about her unclear diction are really not that important here.
Kurt Böhme returns as Fafner, as louring a presence as in Das
Rheingold, and the efforts made by the producers to achieve
a suitable cavernous tone for the dragon pay dividends in spades.
None of the other recordings achieve the same sort of baleful
atmosphere. One’s only reservations might concern the roars
during the fight with Siegfried, which are indeed called for
by Wagner but which are here just a bit too insistent even though
their presence is dramatically thrilling.
In the Prologue to Götterdämmerung we meet a very good
trio of Norns, with Helen Watts superbly cavernous as the First
Norn, Grace Hoffman (another Viennese regular in mezzo roles)
as a nicely rounded Second and Anita Välkki (who sang Brünnhilde
in Solti’s first London Walküre) as a rather squally
Third. Most of the studio sets do themselves proud with the
casting here. Haitink has a starry line-up consisting of Jard
van Nes, Anne-Sofie von Otter and Jane Eaglen; Levine has Helga
Dernesch, Tatiana Troyanos and the slightly less impressive
Andrea Gruber; Karajan has Lili Chookasian, Christa Ludwig (who
doubles as Waltraute, and is the best of all) and the young
Caterina Ligendza; and only Janowski has a somewhat less impressive
team in Anne Gjevang, Daphne Evangelatos and Ruth Falcon. Culshaw
places the voices of the Norns in a bleached chilly acoustic,
which could have been dangerous with a less accomplished team
of singers but which here brings just the right sort of doom-laden
atmosphere. One cannot possibly complain either about the blatantly
electronic engineering of Windgassen’s voice when disguised
as Gunther at the end of the First Act. It realises just the
right sense of strange alienation without being in any way unmusical.
At the beginning of the First Act proper we are at once introduced
to Fischer-Dieskau’s Gunther, a controversial piece of casting
but one which is fully justified by a stunning performance –
more convincingly Wagnerian in tone than his Rheingold
Wotan for Karajan, for example. With intelligent pointing of
words he realises the Gibichung ruler as a truly tragic figure
in his own right, and only his unfortunate lapse into a sort
of Wagnerian ‘bark’ at the end of his Third Act phrase “Angst
und Unheil greife dich immer!” ever suggests any sense of strain.
None of his rivals in the other studio sets comes close to touching
him. By his side Claire Watson seems a somewhat pallid Gutrune
– Gundula Janowitz for Karajan is more feminine, and Cheryl
Studer for Levine more passionate – but she gets the right sense
of fear into her solo at the beginning of the final scene. Gottlob
Frick is simply superb as Hagen, baleful and strong even in
the highest register and black as night in his watch. By comparison
Matti Salminen (for Levine and Janowski) is suitably dark but
somewhat lowering and bullish in tone, John Tomlinson (for Haitink)
is blackness itself but less villainous in sound, and Hans Ridderbusch
(for Karajan) too soft-grained. Here, too, Decca again went
to great lengths to get the right sort of sound from the Stierhorns,
specially manufactured for the recording, and their discords
at the beginning of the muster of the vassals rivet the attention.
Christa Ludwig as Waltraute (for both Solti and Karajan) is
one of those assumptions of a role that simply defeats all possible
challenges. She is by turns fearful, haunted and demanding,
and none of her rivals in studio recordings come near to matching
her; both Ortrun Wenkel (for Janowski) and Hanna Schwarz (for
Levine) have unacceptably unsteady passages, and Marjana Lipovšek
(for Haitink) although intelligent simply lacks the richness
of voice needed for the lower passages. In the final Act we
encounter our new trio of Rhinemaidens, and although the strength
of the young (and, at that stage of her career, rock-steady)
voice of Gwyneth Jones can sometimes overpower her somewhat
smaller-voiced sisters, they generate plenty of excitement and
blend well in ensemble. The choir, trained by Wilhelm Pitz,
is excellent; but one does wish that Solti had obeyed Wagner’s
specific instructions when he sometimes asks only for “one voice”
or “two voices” especially when the vassals are interrogating
Siegfried during his narration. To have the questions delivered
by a full body of choral voices introduces an air of artificiality
into the proceedings which Wagner clearly wished to avoid and
which sounds unnatural. Furtwängler in his dreadfully recorded
(and cut) La Scala performance gets it right.
So here we are, well over 4000 words into this review, and I
have not even yet mentioned the conducting except in passing.
It has to be admitted that Solti was an excitable conductor,
and that in the theatre he sometimes allowed the emotion of
the moment to lead him into an over-emphasis that could unbalance
the conception of the work as a whole. However, for listening
on record, without the visual element, this would seem to be
a fault on the right side. Goodall, for example, who could pace
the whole of the Ring as a single structure, frequently
paid the price with passages that seem slightly pedestrian or
even pallid. Janowski is an excellent technician, but he lacks
Solti’s ability to work up Wagner’s frequent climaxes with all
the energy that they demand. Haitink, who can rise to these
occasions in live performance, allows the tension to slip in
the studio. Levine has the same sort of energy as Solti, but
sometimes he allows this to lead him into sudden unconvincing
switches and accelerations of tempo - the climax of the prelude
to Act Two of Siegfried is a good example of this.
Karajan’s set is peculiar in this regard; when he recorded Walküre
(the first of his cycle to be issued) he seemed to be looking
for a ‘chamber music’ feel in the score which simply fails at
times to rise to the climaxes at all – Rheingold suffers
in the same way – but by the time he came to Götterdämmerung
he had reverted to the more rounded and saturated sound that
mature Wagner needs. For that reason, and because of the changes
of casting in all the major roles between episodes, his Ring
seems the least unified of all. Solti’s contribution to this
set seems to me to have been persistently under-rated even by
critics who recognise the superlative casting. He clarifies
the textures every bit as much as Karajan - and with better
playing, for example before Donner’s “Heda! hedo!”. The only
important orchestral line in the whole score which is underplayed
is the superb rising trumpet line which follows immediately
after Brünnhilde’s “Helle Wehr!” in Act Two of Götterdämmerung,
which is almost smothered by Nilsson’s supremely dramatic performance.
Karajan is similarly reluctant to ‘bring out’ this passage;
Goodall gets it right in his live performance at English National
Opera. In a score the length of the Ring, to find only
one brief passage where the balance is arguably awry is an awesome
achievement. None of the many live performances on CD can claim
anything like as much.
The playing of the Vienna Philharmonic is superb; even the sometimes
acidic tone of the oboes is acceptably characterful. Culshaw
in his book says that the orchestra purchased a new set of timpani
especially for the recording, and they have all the punchiness
that one could possibly want. The Viennese horn players have
a marvellous sense of nobility which makes the entry of the
Wagner tubas - played by the second set of hornists - at the
beginning of the second scene of Rheingold something
very special; this was the point at which the original LP side
division occurred, but the splicing of the two presumably separate
recording tapes is sensitively done here. The string playing
has a coruscating quality that quite outclasses Karajan’s Berlin
players, notably in the divided passage that begins Donner’s
call to the thunder towards the end of Rheingold. At
the same time they are masters of the impressionist sweeps that
Wagner introduced into orchestral writing in the Magic Fire
Music - and at many other points in the score - and which
lend the music much of its distinctive colour. Nobody is going
to record a studio Ring without a world-class orchestra
and the other sets made in Berlin, Dresden, Munich and New York
all boast first-rate playing. The Viennese have a tone that
is saturated in the Wagner sound and at the time of these sessions
had a tradition stretching back some eighty or more years to
conductors like Richter and Möttl, who had worked with Wagner
himself on the Ring at the first Bayreuth performances.
Some of the older players here will therefore have performed
alongside colleagues who had a first-hand connection to the
composer himself.
It is not surprising that the Solti Ring was one of
the first operatic sets issued on CD by Decca after 1983. However
the initial releases were somewhat disappointing in many ways.
At that stage of the development of CD technology it was not
possible to allow any of the Acts of the tetralogy except Act
One of Die Walküre to be heard without interruption;
the sound, especially in Siegfried, was a bit boomy
and lacked the sheer excitement of the original LP resonance.
The newly designed covers were uninspired and dispiriting. In
1997 Decca re-mastered the recordings, to their considerable
benefit, restored the magnificently atmospheric original cover
designs, and rationalised the CD layout to eliminate many of
the undesirable mid-Act breaks: incidentally reducing Rheingold
from three to two CDs. This reissue not only re-masters the
original tapes again, but also restores a quaver in Rheingold
that was accidentally missed out in the original editing. I
must admit that I had never noticed its absence. The side-breaks
here remain as in 1997, which is unfortunate in Siegfried
where the first break actually comes in mid-note: Windgassen’s
phrase “Wo birgst du dich?” ends in mid-air, and the fp
string tremolo which should underpin the final word in fact
begins the second disc. It may have actually been recorded that
way - the same break was made on the original LPs - but it should
have been possible in this re-mastering to restore what Wagner
actually wrote and move the break back to a silent bar some
time earlier. The break between the last two discs comes after
Wotan’s “Weisst du, was Wotan will?” where Wagner’s score indicates
Langes Schweigen; but this is a dramatic pause – the
supposedly all-wise Erda is unable to answer his question –
and a better break could have been made just after Siegfried’s
entrance some minutes later, which is where the Goodall set
makes it.
Otherwise the breaks between the discs, where they are unavoidable,
are made with sensitivity and taste. I will return to this matter
later when considering the Blu-Ray Audio version.
The second volume of this set brings a full new edition of John
Culshaw’s book Ring Resounding, long out of print,
but one must admit that the format of the book in two columns
on a full-side LP-style page does not make for ease of reading.
The text remains as in the original, complete with Culshaw’s
reticence about Ernst Kozub and with his disparaging remarks
about both the Hans Knappertsbusch 1951 live Bayreuth Götterdämmerung
and the complete 1955 Joseph Keilberth recording from the same
venue remaining - both have subsequently become available on
CD and the Keilberth has garnered ecstatic critical reviews.
The only alteration is the omission of the schedule showing
the timings and layout of the original LP sides, which is no
longer of any relevance. Some of the illustrations from the
original book are no longer here either, and I miss the picture
of Hagen’s alpine horn. Culshaw’s comments about the future
of opera recording make very interesting reading; he anticipates
the arrival of flat-screen stereophonic television and DVD performances,
even if he was optimistic about the time-scale over which these
innovations might arrive. We still await the fulfilment of his
suggestion that the home viewer might be able to ‘produce’ the
operas to suit his own pleasure. Culshaw would certainly not
have been pleased by modern trends in production in the opera
house, and his expectation of the use of film to provide background
scenery for productions of the Ring remains unrealised.
However he is always an interesting writer - he had once hoped
to make a career as a novelist - and the book remains both readable
and enjoyable.
Also readable and enjoyable is Deryck Cooke’s masterly analysis
of the music of the cycle, contained in the third volume of
this set. Originally given in full when the LPs were issued,
the CD release abridged the printed text - the spoken text of
course remained intact - which reduced the CD booklet to manageable
proportions but robbed the reader of the chance to follow his
arguments in detail. Cooke went on to produce a much more elaborate
analysis not only of the music but also of the text, but we
were denied three-quarters of his projected book by his death.
The torso was published as I saw the world end and
remains one of the most valuable pieces of writing on Wagner’s
Ring. This makes the present analysis all the more
indispensable and valuable. Some of his conclusions on the way
in which Wagner constructed his motifs - which are illustrated
not only with excerpts from the Solti recording but also with
some specially recorded examples - are perhaps a mite contentious.
Is the motif of ‘resentment’ really built up from the harmonies
of the ‘ring’ motif in the rather mechanical way he describes?
Be that as it may his classification of the motifs into ‘families’
which are linked by specific harmonic and melodic configurations
is a valuable antidote to the prevalent habit of labelling the
themes and leaving them to stand alone that was long the custom
of earlier critics and analysts such as Walzogen and Newman.
This set also gives us Culshaw’s valuable essays on the individual
operas which were originally written for the LP issues, and
a brief note by Humphrey Carpenter on the television documentary
The Golden Ring which was recorded during the second
set of Götterdämmerung sessions.
The television documentary also forms part of the package, and
confirms one’s impressions of Solti’s dynamic conducting style.
Has any conductor, except perhaps Bernstein, ever worked so
hard and energetically at getting exactly the sense of excitement
he wanted? It also stands as testimony to the impassioned commitment
of Windgassen and Frick who really throw themselves into the
dramatic implications of what they are singing. Nilsson is a
tower of strength and it comes almost as a relief when she breaks
down into a fit of giggles as the recording team introduce a
live horse into the final session of her Immolation scene. The
sound on the video recording is a bit brash by comparison with
the re-mastered sound on the CDs themselves, but the sense of
excitement and passion remains for us to enjoy. Even the rather
grainy black-and-white images and slightly sycophantic commentary
by Humphrey Burton himself add to the sense of period occasion.
For those who would like to hear the recording in better quality
sound without the need to go to the original discs themselves,
the video also includes surround-sound versions of the music
included in the original television documentary.
The re-mastering of the 1997 digital tapes - the original analogues,
we are advised, have unavoidably deteriorated over the years
despite the best attempts to preserve them - is extremely well
done. We are told that an attempt has been made to delete extraneous
background noises, although the clatter of something being dropped
(?) during Flosshilde’s seduction of Alberich in Rheingold
– probably the most noticeable such sound – remains audible
and presumably could not be removed. At the same time some of
the internal balances in the orchestra have been improved, and
one immediately notices one example of this at the very beginning
of the Rheingold prelude. In the original
LP issues, and in the first CD set, there was always a problem
with the opening E-flat in the double basses being followed
by the B-flat a fifth above in the lowest register of the bassoons.
This was a problem of Wagner’s own creation, in that it is simply
impossible for the bassoons to play as quietly as the double
basses and there is an unfortunate tendency for the basic E-flat
to be overshadowed by the fifth above it. In the 1997 reissue,
and here, the E-flat is given its proper status as the bedrock
on which the whole of the prelude is based, presumably by boosting
the double bass sound, an excellent example of the properly
musical manner in which the re-mastering has been undertaken.
It should be mentioned that there was also a limited edition
Japanese re-mastering issued in 2009 which was reviewed on this
site by Jack Lawson (review),
but it is not clear what connection that has to this new edition.
We are also given a complete performance of the whole Ring
on one Blu-Ray Audio disc, which gives us the whole recording
without any compression and as closely as possible to the original
taped sound. I am grateful to a friend who set up a number of
comparative audio systems to enable me to compare these, together
with copies of the original LP sets (which we played on an SME
turntable using a Koetsu Urushi cartridge).
The first thing that has to be said is that the sound played
through the best systems - we used a Sony Vaio laptop using
Corel Win DVD pro 11 playing via USB into Benchmark Dac 1, Audio
Research Reference 3 and Reference 110 amplifiers and Martin
LoganVantage speakers- is quite definitely an improvement on
even the CDs as re-mastered here; there is a greater sense of
depth and resonance, and a natural hall acoustic which sets
the voices further back within this without at any point compromising
the immediacy of their dramatic contributions. It makes an appreciable
difference what equipment you play the disc on. Using a standard
Blu-Ray set-up with a normal television receiver - we experimented
with a BDP S350 via hdmi - will not get the best out of it,
and listeners will need to experiment themselves with various
configurations - as we did, using also a Sony BDP S350 Blu-Ray
player optically linked to Benchmark Dac 1 - to decide what
produces the optimum results.
The notes with the set emphasise the continuity that is possible
on Blu-Ray Audio without breaks between CDs, and the joins are
well managed with one important exception. That comes with the
CD change between discs 1 and 2 of Siegfried (between
sides 2 and 3 of the original LPs), to which I have already
referred. One would have expected here the engineers to have
stitched back together the last note of Siegfried’s vocal line
from the end of the first passage with the fp
chord which begins the second; this can be done, as
Decca themselves demonstrated with a similar passage in their
CD reissue of the Dorati recording of Strauss’s Aegyptische
Helena where the break between sides 1 and 2 of the original
LPs was re-assembled, or as their fellow Universal company DG
did between LP sides 5 and 6 of their Pfitzner Palestrina.
Instead, and with incredible lack of awareness, they have inserted
a pause of a couple of seconds right in the middle
of a supposedly continuous passage. The German company responsible
for the sub-contracted Blu-Ray transfer make great claims for
their technical engineering work on their website. Did their
engineers even look at Wagner’s score at this point?
This is quite simply a disastrous example of spoiling a ship
for a ha’p’orth of tar. I do not know whether Decca propose
at some future date to release this Blu-Ray version as a separate
item, or to make it available for lossless download; but if
they do, this is a matter that requires addressing and correcting
urgently.
We were puzzled by references in some online audiophile reviews
to the fact that Rheingold is alleged in some quarters
to have been transferred sharp in the CD reissue – that is,
at a higher pitch than indicated in the score. Comparison with
the LP issue showed no such transposition. We can only assume
that the critics in question were not aware of the fact that
the Vienna Philharmonic have always traditionally played at
a pitch of A=448 or thereabouts, as opposed to the more normal
pitch of A=440. This is therefore one point at which the engineers
cannot be accused of any underhand practice; they simply reflected
the actual sound produced by the orchestra. Perfect pitch can
be a curse as well as a blessing. Other critics have expressed
a preference for the sound in the original CD issue as opposed
to the 1997 re-mastering. This is a matter of personal taste.
We both preferred the clarity of the re-mastered recording.
This more closely reflected the superb sound of the original
LPs. In any event the original CD issues suffer far more severely
from unmusical breaks during Acts between the CDs: there are
two breaks in Rheingold, and also breaks in
Act Three of Walküre and both Acts Two and Three of
Götterdämmerung. This configuration reflects the original
LP layout which the 1997 reissues and this further re-mastering
avoid.
Yet another disc in this luxury set gives us Solti’s recording
of the original chamber version of the Siegfried Idyll.
This was originally intended as a fill-up for his reading of
the Bruckner Seventh Symphony but later included in
Decca’s first issue of the complete cycle in an LP box. Culshaw
remembers the session, completed in the final stages of the
Walküre recording, as “pure enchantment”. This exactly
describes the beautiful playing of members of the VPO even though,
as Culshaw describes in Ring Resounding, the session
actually caused a near-breakdown of relations between the recording
team and the orchestra. Another pendant to the Ring
cycle, the little Kinderkatechismus which Wagner wrote
for Cosima after the completion of the cycle and which quotes
from the final bars of Götterdämmerung, was recorded
for inclusion in the first LP box of the complete cycle but
has never subsequently appeared on CD. It is a charming miniature
which deserves to be better known, even if the cloying sentimentality
of the words might grate with sensitive ears. To fill up the
CD we are given a series of recordings of Wagner snippets which
Solti made with the VPO during the same period. Here perhaps
some of the accusations about Solti’s hard driving might be
regarded as justified. He enjoys the big tune during the opening
of the Rienzi overture, but the brass-saturated final
sections have a brashness that while exciting is harsh. The
Flying Dutchman overture is simply too fast and over-driven.
An interesting comparison may be made here with Solti’s comparatively
under-characterised reading which begins his complete recording
in Chicago some fifteen years later. There the sound especially
from the brass is more rounded. In his complete Tannhäuser
recording, also with the VPO, Solti linked the Overture and
the Venusberg music as Wagner himself did in his later performances.
Here we are given the two movements independently. This enables
us to appreciate Solti’s noble recapitulation of the Pilgrim’s
march at the end of the overture. It’s a nobility that does
not preclude excitement. He builds the reiterated violin figuration
about which Berlioz was so scathing with a sure and steady hand,
rising to a superbly judged climax. The febrile excitement of
his interpretation of the Paris version of the Venusberg music
does not have the emotional intensity of his reading in the
complete set. The choral passages are nicely distanced, however,
and the ending has the right sort of satiated glow that the
music demands.
The fourth volume in this set gives us not only Culshaw’s essays
issued with the original LPs and a complete synopsis of the
plot but also contains the complete libretti. In the 1997 issue
we were given the original German together with parallel translations
into both French and English. The English translations for the
first three operas omitted all the stage directions, and were
anonymous; that for Götterdämmerung was attributed
to Lionel Salter and did contain the full stage directions.
Here we have a new translation, including abridged stage directions,
by Stewart Spencer which dates from 1993. It differs in many
points of detail from its predecessor and is not as strictly
accurate, frequently including additional words that are not
in the original German, but it reads well and is literate. Fuller
stage directions might have helped to identify some of Culshaw’s
sound effects. There is no explanation, for example, of the
rustle of metal as Mime drops the Tarnhelm at the end of the
first CD. The lack of a French translation is more serious.
Indeed there are no languages except German and English used
anywhere in this issue. Possibly alternatives will be provided
for the international market? The volume also contains a number
of session photographs which so far as I am aware have not been
previously published.
There are some other extras, too. A pocket inside the jacket
of the third volume contains some promotional photographs from
the time of the original LP releases as well as the original
advertisements and reviews from the Gramophone magazine.
These might have been rendered even more valuable with the addition
of the supplementary reviews that the Gramophone published
at that time as ‘quarterly retrospects’ as well as Culshaw’s
articles written to introduce the LPs as they were released.
We are however given his final article written on the completion
of the cycle as well as a retrospective published to celebrate
the fiftieth anniversary of the issue of Rheingold.
On a personal level I miss the original photographic artwork
by Hans Wild which adorned the original LP releases and which
were used for the individual box covers in 1997. On the other
hand the re-packaging of this luxurious reissue is most handsome,
and make this set a possession that any collector would be most
proud to own.
The Solti Ring has stood up well over the years and,
as I hope my detailed review above has shown, it has most certainly
not been out-classed by any of the later studio recordings.
It is not perfect, of course – could any recording of
this massive work ever hope to be? – but it has fewer
weak points than any of its rivals; and the fact that it was
recorded in a studio, with the possibility of ensuring note-perfect
performances as well as allowing the singers to deliver passages
in full voice that they would never be able to undertake without
strain in the context of a live performance, means that it also
stands head and shoulders above any rival for the sheer accuracy
with which it reproduces Wagner’s intentions. In order
to simulate the atmosphere of a theatre performance, Culshaw
controversially introduced a large number of stage effects including
sounds of filing and hammering of the sword, the collapse of
the Gibichung hall and so on, which other recordings have largely
eschewed (although the sound of the hall collapsing at the end
of Götterdämmerung sounds more like a firework
display in Haitink’s recording). But these effects never
interfere with the quality of the music-making itself, and do
add a dramatic frisson to the overall effect which compensates
for the lack of the visual element. Collectors who want a complete
Wagner Ring in their collection which gives us the
score exactly as Wagner wrote it without any errors or slips
such as are inevitable in any live performance will want this
recording. And the presentation here, nearly perfect in every
detail, should be most attractive to any new purchasers of the
cycle. Decca showed great courage in meeting the enormous expense
of making this recording in the first place, and the results
fully justify their leap of faith. It remains as superb a performance
now as it did when it was first issued, and in terms of sheer
sound alone need fear no later rivals.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
The 2012 Re-mastering Appraised
by Jack Lawson
Probably the most precious issue
in the history of the gramophone.
In his enthusiastic review of the 2012 Decca presentation of
the Solti Ring, with which I wholeheartedly agree, Paul Corfield
Godfrey raises the question of its relationship to the superb
Japanese re-mastered edition issued two years earlier review.
I offer this appendix as a technical assessment of the re-mastering.
In a nutshell, the TEAC-Esoteric set was a limited edition on
the superior DSD (SACD) format; only thirty five sets were exported
from Japan to the UK. It sold out worldwide 2 – 3 months after
release and apparently fetches up to twice its exorbitant asking
price of £500 on websites. The Decca set is marketed as a Limited
Edition; it may be but mine has no number. However, it is far
more sumptuous, comprehensive, and it is in English. It is also
far cheaper at under £200 and a plain edition is very likely.
Perhaps surprisingly, I have to say that the Decca CDs are audibly
superior to the Esoteric SACDs. There is more transparency of
sound along with a warmth intended to reflect the original vinyl.
As such, it is very successful. I found myself unable to press
the stop button; this is the acid test. It is no mean achievement.
How did it happen?
The first re-mastering was arguably the (German) Teldec set
(Telefunken-Decca) on LPs. Although much quieter surfaces than
the notorious New Malden record pressing plant in the UK, the
analogue sound was anaemic and lacked dynamics.
In 1997 Decca issued the Solti Ring on fourteen CDs. The transfer
engineer, James Lock, had worked as a junior in the recording
and knew all about the Decca Sound. In the CD notes he describes
the care he took in creating the digital replica, allowing analogue
hiss to remain in order to avoid robbing the music of its vivid
timbre and ambience. However, in my opinion, the CDs were not
adequate to portray the Wagnerian canvas.
In January 2010 The Esoteric division of TEAC shipped to the
UK only thirty-five sets of its re-mastered Solti Ring on 14
SACDs plus literature and bonus DVD of the BBC documentary.
At this point, anything Decca had manufactured was pushed into
the shade.
I know from sources that the Universal Classics engineers in
London (owners of today’s DECCA) were motivated by a competition
to surpass the Japanese licensees.
European labels play a game with the Japanese because they are
envious of the sizeable Asian connoisseur audiophile and music
buying market. The Europeans are also aware of the greater care
and quality control demanded by this large and discriminating
market. For this reason many UK buyers are paying £30 per CD
to import Japanese CDs recorded in Europe by European labels.
Although SHM and Blu-Spec CDs are high precision products (invariably
protected by proper inner sleeves) the Japanese depend on well-preserved
first generation tapes from the European studios.
The European labels do not like their domestic product disclosed
as sub-standard and this leads to some games. While they accept
the copyright money they do like to withhold the best tapes.
In this case the re-mastering engineer, Philip Siney, states
that an unnamed Japanese project in 2009 were given access to
the original analogue masters … but sadly they had deteriorated
over forty-five years. Oh dear! Knowing this, he chose to re-master
from Decca’s 1997 digital transfers created at a higher than
16-bit (CD) resolution required at the time for CD release.
These tapes benefited further from the careful restoration work
of his mentor, James “Jimmy” Lock, one of the original tonmeisters
and proponents of “the Decca Sound”.
I smiled as I read this and I wondered if re-processing the
digital sound of the mediocre 1997 Decca CDs was going to approach
the glory of the Vienna Philharmonic courtesy of the Japanese
engineers. According to Siney, in 2012 he aimed for warmth plus
transparency. Now this is hard to believe: warmth calls for
a bit more bass; transparency for more brilliance. Only the
most advanced engineer and best digital processors can bring
forward the signal and recess the noise.
The verdict: Philip Siney has achieved what he claims. He avoids
a Hi-Fi sound but achieves natural transparency and inner detail
combined with just the right ambience and warmth. The very best
CD mastering gets very close to SACD’s extra detail and headroom,
and Decca delivers it here.
The 2012 set has an additional investment because, as technology
progresses, you own a 24-bit master. That is a rare gesture
because – as I noted in my Beatles Re-mastered review - EMI
produced the 16-bit CDs and kept in reserve the higher resolution
to sell again some rainy day.
During the economic hardship, record collectors may like to
know that the 2012 Decca set is to be issued this year in a
plain set of fourteen CDs supposedly at around £100. But in
2010 Decca reissued a distinguished Bayreuth (live) Ring conducted
by Karl Böhm; also on 14 CDs it boasts the very best singers
of the sixties, many on the Solti Ring. Supposedly intended
for Deutsche Grammophon, it is said that Karajan intervened
and the then-independent Philips label issued the recording.
Then as now, the Solti remains unsurpassed with the benefits
of the Vienna Philharmonic, and Decca’s studio recording with
enhanced, ambitious and expensive techniques. Böhm’s Rheingold,
for example, opens to much coughing and noises from the pit;
the theatre orchestra of Bayreuth is no match for the Viennese.
However, one soon becomes aware of a dramatic intensity. This
is one of the most intense and gripping Ring soundtracks which
works without the spectacle. Theoretically fast tempos emerge
as a brilliant insight, propelling the drama, creating what
the reviewers correctly identified as the most compelling and
involving readings of this work. I don’t imply a light touch,
but there is an absence of any ponderous lingering. In a word
it is intoxicating and thrilling in a way which modern productions
strive but fail to achieve by gimmicks. What may count in the
present economic downturn is the absurd bargain of around £30
for a 14-disc set of this quality. Overall, not as great as
Solti, but it can communicate the essence of the Ring perhaps
even better.
Decca’s 2012 Anniversary Ring celebrating the birth years of
Wagner and Solti is probably the most precious issue in the
history of the gramophone. It may be superseded by a basic set
lacking the extras, including the high resolution Blu-Ray disc.
Jack Lawson
