Sinopoli's 1998 Parsifal on Blu-Ray

Richard Wagner, Parsifal

Falk Struckmann – Amfortas

Matthias Hölle – Titurel

Hans Sotin – Gurnemanz

Poul Elming – Parsifal

Ekkehard Wlaschina – Klingsor

Linda Watson – Kundry

Choir and Orchestra of the Bayreuth Festival

Giuseppe Sinopoli – conductor

Unitel Classica/C major (Blu-Ray: 715804)

Also available as DVD (705908)

This Blu-Ray disc from C major is both a fascinating historical document and a first-rate performance of Parsifal. From a historical perspective it gives a unique insight into Wolfgang Wagner’s final Parsifal production and is one of the few testaments we have of Giuseppe’s Sinopoli as a Wagner conductor (the only other complete Wagner performances that I can find are a Flying Dutchman from 1998 and two Tannhauser, one from Bayreuth). From a musical point of view, there is powerful conducting and some very good individual singing, in addition of course to the habitually high standards of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and Chorus. Overall this is a strong performance, and definitely one of the best available on Blu-Ray.

Giuseppe Sinopoli succeeded James Levine as Bayreuth’s Parsifal conductor. Levine’s reign lasted from 1982 to 1993 (with Daniel Barenboim taking over for a year in 1987). Sinopoli conducted Parsifal for six years from 1994 through 1999. The staging by Wolfgang Wagner seen here made its first appearance under Levine in 1989. The performance seen here comes from 1998 and was released for the first time on DVD in May 2011. This review is of the Blu-Ray, released in 2014.

Sinopoli’s conducting is expansive. The Prelude comes in at 13’47”, which is slow but not super-slow. But the drama as a whole takes 4 hours 39 minutes, several minutes slower than Levine’s famously slow 1990 recording – and just a couple of minutes quicker by Toscanini’s 1931 Bayreuth performance. The Prelude to Act III show’s Sinopoli’s approach to good effect. It is measured, but not slow for the sake of slow. The tempi set the forward movement for Act III. Sinopoli’s conducting is commanding where it counts (particularly in the two great choral scenes in the outer acts) and he brings out many details of the score that remain buried in other performances. Each of the two transformation scenes is very effective. The Good Friday Music, in particular, flows naturally from the pacing of the act, rather than emerging as a set piece.

Wolfgang Wagner’s production is appealingly simple, clearly looking back to the Neue Bayreuth productions of the 1950s and 1960s. In Act I the forest is suggested by backdrop structures of stacked green polygons, which eventually part to make way for a vaguely Egyptian-looking Temple with a floor abstractly patterned in octagons. The patterned floor is a constant through the other two acts, and the abstract structures return for Act III. Variation comes with the lighting, which is used to very good effect (as in Wieland’s productions). In Act III the glowing grail casting a luminous red light on the costumes of the knights is particularly memorable.

There is one truly outstanding performance here – Falk Struckman’s Amfortas. Struckman captures Amfortas’s declining authority in Act I without making him seem decrepit and he certainly steals the show in Act III. Not only is he in very fine voice, he is the only member of the cast who could really be described as acting. The others typically stand and sing. In some cases they sing well. Hans Sotin is a magisterial Gurnemanz, with “Titurel der fromme held” approaching Hans Hotter’s level (helped by Sinopoli’s luminous conducting). Poul Elming portrays the boisterous and confused Act I Parsifal well. But although he sings powerfully in Acts II and IIII (particularly after baptizing Kundry) Parsifal doesn’t seem to have acquired much depth or wisdom. This is partly a problem of acting, but also reflects shortcomings in characterization. The same can be said of Linda Watson, here making her first Bayreuth appearance. She has a fine voice and sings well, but does not really get to grips with the complexities of the role. During the Parsifal-Kundry encounter in Act II the real drama takes place in the orchestra pit. Ekkehard Wlaschiha is a forceful Klingsor (despite wearing what looks rather like a Stanford PhD gown!) and Matthias Hölle’s off-stage Titurel is effective.

This performance is more than good, although not quite great. The Blu-Ray picture is very impressive (despite the disclaimer on the box), as is the sound quality. This disc should be in every Parsifal enthusiast’s collection.  

Haydn's London Sonatas played by Gottlieb Wallisch

M

Joseph Haydn: The London Sonatas

Gottleib Wallisch, piano

Sonata No. 60 in C major (Hob. XVI/50)

Sonata No. 61 in D major (Hob. XVI/51)

Sonata No. 62 in E-flat major (Hob. XVI/52)

Variations in F minor (Hob. XVII/6)

Sonata No. 59 in E-flat major (Hob. XVI/49)

Linn CKD 464            (Hybrid SACD)

This beautifully recorded and presented disc offers us Haydn’s last four piano sonatas, together with the Variations in F minor. The Sonata No. 59 was the last sonata Haydn composed during his 24 years as Kapellmeister in Esterháza. The last three sonatas were all composed during Haydn’s 2^nd visit to London (1794-5).

The extraordinary success Haydn enjoyed during his lifetime, coupled with his prodigious output, are about as far as one can imagine from the Romantic cliché of the tortured artist starving in a garret. But in many of his late works, those on this disc included, Haydn’s vision seems more attuned to the nineteenth century than the eighteenth.

The final sonata (No. 62) is large in scope and ambitious in conception, while Wallisch’s program notes describe the first movement of the D major sonata as reaching perhaps as far as Schubert. The E-flat sonata No. 59 has an affecting and effective slow movement which Haydn himself characterized as “full of meaning and emotion” in a letter to the original dedicatee Marianne von Genzinger – a description equally appropriate to the Adagio of the final E-flat sonata (No. 62).

Formally the 2 movement D major sonata (No. 61) is unusual and its second movement is rhythmically very innovative. At the same time these pieces show Haydn’s inventive and playful sides – the short finale to the C major sonata (No. 60) is a good example.

Gottleib Wallisch, who has previously recorded three Mozart discs for Linn, plays with great clarity and articulation. As one might expect, the sound quality is outstanding. This SACD is a very welcome addition to Linn’s catalog and is warmly recommended.

Claudia Abbado, Opening Concert at the 2013 Lucerne Festival (Brahms, Schoenberg, Beethoven)

Brahms, Tragic Overture

Schoenberg, Interlude and Song of the Wood-Dove from Gurreleider

Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 Eroica

Lucerne Festival Orchestra

Mihoko Fujimura, Mezzo-Soprano

Lucerne Festival Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abbado

Recorded on 16/17 August 2013

Accentus Blu-Ray 10282

(also available on DVD)

This disc represents the last audiovisual recording of Claudio Abbado conducting – although not the last recording tout court, as a CD of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 recorded later in the 2013 festival will soon be released. Abbado died  on 20^th January, 2014 and it is tempting to see this as a valedictory performance – particularly given the bleak programming, with Brahms’s Tragic Overture, an extract from Gurreleider that is all about death and loss, and Eroica symphony with Beethoven’s finest funeral march.

That would be completely wrong, however. This opening concert is really a celebration. It marks 10 years of wonderful music-making by Abbado and his hand-picked selection of musicians. The Lucerne festival has given us some magnificent recordings, particularly of Mahler and Bruckner, two composers with whom Abbado has a particular affinity. And this concert does not disappoint.

Both the Tragic Overture and the orchestral interlude from Gurreleider showcase the LFO’s extremely fine string section, at its best in the late Romantic repertoire. In the ‘Song of the Wood-Dove’ (which is more of a lament than a song) Abbado achieves a skillful and effective balance between the huge orchestra and the dark tone of Mihoko Fujimura’s mezzo-soprano.  But the real highlight of  the performance, unsurprisingly, is the Eroica symphony.

According to the (rather breathless) liner notes, Abbado makes the Funeral March the emotional centerpiece of the symphony. I have to disagree. The Funeral March, played with minimal vibrato, is certainly very powerful, but to describe it as the centerpiece fails to do justice to Abbado’s architectural conception and to the forward momentum that he establishes from the opening bars.  This performance reveals a deeply organic vision of the symphony and none of the movements can be taken on its own terms. The pacing of the scherzo, for example, builds to a perfectly judged transition into the finale.

The Lucerne Festival was obviously very special. This disc is a very worthy celebration of 10 great years that yielded most of the high points of Abbado’s conducting career.

Chailly's Mahler 5 on Blu-Ray

Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 5

Riccardo Chailly

Gewandhaus-Orchester

Accentus Music

Blu-Ray: ACC 10284

(Also available as DVD: ACC 20284)

This Blu-Ray disc is the latest in a projected complete Blu-Ray/DVD cycle of Mahler symphonies by the Gewandhaus conducted by their current musical director Riccardo Chailly. Symphonies No. 2, 4, 6, and 8 have already been released. This will be Chailly’s second Mahler cycle. Decca released the first with the Concertgebouw Amsterdam on CD in 2005.

As Chailly stresses in the very worthwhile interview included as a bonus feature, both the Concertgebouw and the Gewandhaus have strong historical links with Mahler through William Mengelberg and Bruno Walter respectively. For this performance Chailly steeped himself in Mengelberg’s annotated score.

Chailly sets himself against the trend for decelerated tempi in Mahler conducting, which he sees as self-indulgence that obscures the formal structure. His approach is classical in inspiration. He underplays Mahler’s ironical moments and resists the temptation to sentimental wallowing in the Adagietto. The performance gives an overwhelming impression of energy and movement. Interestingly, and perhaps an illustration of how much Mahler conducting has changed (since this performance still sounds brisk), he remains much slower than Mengelberg’s famous 1926 recording of the Adagietto, taking 8’39” to Mengelberg’s 7’04”.

In the score Mahler divides the five movements of the 5^th Symphony into three parts – the first two and last two movements each form a block, separated by the middle part which is composed simply of the scherzo.  Chailly takes his organization very much to heart (and structures his interview around it). On his interpretation the scherzo clearly comes across as the symphony’s center of gravity. There is no gap between the first and second movements. The transition is very effective and highlights the continuity in Part I – as he puts it in the interview, the second movement is an attack on the first movement’s funeral march.

There is an equally striking transition from the fourth movement to the finale, reflecting how well integrated the Adagietto is into the overall structure of the symphony. The finale has great power, momentum, and humor. It is Mahler at his sunniest – with Chailly identifying the last two bars as homage to Offenbach.  

This is a very fine performance with excellent Blu-Ray sound and unobtrusive videography.          I recommend it very highly and look forward to the rest of the cycle.

Thielemann's Bruckner 8 with the Staatskapelle Dresden (Blu-ray)

Anton Bruckner, Symphony No. 8

Staatskapelle Dresden

Christian Thielemann

C Major 716204        (Blu-Ray)

  

This performance of Bruckner’s 8^th Symphony was recorded in the Semperoper, Dresden on June 10, 2012 and is the first in a projected complete cycle of the Bruckner symphonies. An opera house is an unlikely venue for this most unoperatic of symphonies, but the performance is magnificent and was justly met with that very rare phenomenon – a standing ovation from a European symphony audience.

Thielemann’s interpretation is very weighty and feels slow. Looking at the timings reveal that the performance is no slower than most. What it has, though, is a rare sense of deliberateness and purpose. One way in which this reveals itself is in the balance within and across the four movements. Each of the first three movements is perfectly paced to set up its successor, and the tempo of the finale is exactly right to recapitulate its predecessors.

The first movement is 16’03” but feels slower. There is a great dramatic build up that still respects the movement’s lyrical passages with fine wind playing and well shaped phrasing in the strings. The tension is dissipated in the coda. In the second movement the contrast between the Scherzo and the Trio is well judged. The first occurrence of the Scherzo allows the much slower Trio to be foregrounded, while the reprise of the Scherzo feels much more driving and nicely frames an Adagio that is both lyrical and probing. The balance and dialog between strings, wind, and brass is particularly fine both in this movement and in the wonderfully paced finale.

I only have a couple of quibbles, one with the recording and one with the videography. The first is minor. The harp seems artificially foregrounded in the early parts of the Adagio, temporarily distorting the balance of the music. The second is much more significant. The videographer registers the climax of the Adagio with a pedestrian panning shot around the opera house. This adds nothing to the music and runs a serious risk of distracting the listener/viewer.  

But putting these quibbles to one wide, musically this is most impressive and bodes well for the rest of the cycle. Thielemann is cementing his position as one of the leading contemporary Bruckner conductors. Highly recommended.

Remastered historical Bruckner recordings from Giulini and Schuricht

Anton Bruckner, Symphony No. 2 (*)

Anton Bruckner, Symphony No. 8 (**)

Anton Bruckner, Symphony No. 9 (**)

(*)       Wiener Symphoniker, conduced by Carlo Maria Giulini

Vienna Symphony Orchestra label WS004 (CD)

(**)     Wiener Philharmoniker, conduced by Carl Schuricht

            EMI Classics 50999 9 55984 2 0 (2 discs - Hybrid SACD)

Here are two very welcome reissues of historical recordings from the 1960’s and 1970’s of great Bruckner conductors in Vienna  – a 2-disc set from EMI Classics of Bruckner 8 and 9 from Carl Schuricht conducting the Vienna Philharmonic and a single disc with Bruckner 2 from Carlo Maria Giulini and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, originally issued by Warner and now reissued as the fourth release from the Vienna Symphony’s own label. The Schuricht recordings date from 1963 and 1961 respectively, while the Giulini performance was recorded in December 1974. All three have been remastered, with the Schuricht discs remastered into SACD.

Although only 10 years or so separate the Schuricht recordings from the Giulini recordings, these are two very different eras of Bruckner conducting. Schuricht is from the school of Furtwängler and Knappersbusch – at least in his freedom with tempi, although he is far less monumental  in his approach to Bruckner than either of the others. Giulini is much more measured and in the modern style.

Giulini imbues the 2^nd with real depth. Too often it sounds like a pale shadow of the Bruckner to come, but the emotional intensity of Bruckner’s late symphonies is already there in Giulini’s performance, particularly in the slow movement where he does more than justice to the solemnity of the main theme. At the same time Giulini does not shy away from some of the effects in this symphony that are far cruder than the late Bruckner would have contemplated (e.g. in the Scherzo and Finale, both of which are conducted with great energy and vitality). The end of the Finale is particularly dramatic (as noted in the interesting essay by Robert Freund, horn player with the orchestra and involved in the original recording session). 

Carl Schuricht uses tempo variations in both of these recordings to good effect. His approach to Bruckner is relatively undramatic. His Bruckner is not the Bruckner of the church or of the mountain-tops. And so he uses fluctuating tempi to build (and then dissipate) tension and to carve out the structure of the two symphonies.  His climaxes are understated but nonetheless effective – primarily because of how he builds and moulds the musical line building up to them. To my mind his approach is more successful (even more successful!) in the 9^th than the 8^th., but both performances are recommended.