Reviews for CD 2311-12 1936 Götterdämmerung
An imposing addition to the 1930s Wagnerian discography – and in better-than-hoped-for sound. . . Jonathan Woolf – MusicWeb
MusicWeb – October 2005
Richard
WAGNER (1813-1883)
Götterdämmerung – Act
II complete
Brünnhilde – Frieda Leider (soprano)
Siegfried - Lauritz Melchior (tenor)
Gunther – Herbert Janssen (baritone)
Waltraute - Kerstin Thorborg (mezzo)
Hagen – Ludwig Weber (bass) / Emanuel List (bass)
Alberich - Eduard Habich (bass-baritone)
Gutrune – Maria Nezadal (soprano)
Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Covent Garden / Thomas Beecham
Recorded 14th and 29th May
1936 with interpolations
Also:
Act I Scene 2, Hagen’s Hier sitz to the end of the Act
Act III Brünnhilde’s Immolation Scene
Elfriede Maherr-Wagner (Gutrune)
Berlin State Opera Orchestra / Leo Blech, recorded 1928
Excerpts from Frieda Leider – Wagner;
War es so schamlich (Die Walküre Act III
Scene 3) [7.33]
Heil dir sonne! (Siegfried Act III Scene 3) [4.24]
Ewig war ich (Siegfried Act III Scene 3) [8.31]
Berlin State Opera Orchestra/Leo Blech, recorded
1927
GUILD GHCD 2311/12 [67.26 + 73.47]
Firstly a note on what we have. The
principal torso is the remains of Beecham's
1936 Götterdämmerung; a chunk
of Act I is extant though one disc has
been lost and a patch from a 1937 Melchior
performance has been utilised to cover
a gap after Brünnhilde’s 'jag'st du mich
hin'. Act II is not fully extant. Patches
from the 1950 Furtwängler performance
have been spliced into scene one and
a Habich passage is from the 1936 Met
(Bodanzky) though Weber and Habich were
captured singing for Beecham in 1936.
The Immolation Scene from Act III derives
from commercial discs made in Berlin
under Blech in 1928. There are also
excerpts from Frida Leider's Die Walküre
and Siegfried, once more with Blech
but this time from 1927. Quite a complicated
procedure then and one that has been
accomplished with considerable care
and firm supporting documentary information
(a Guild speciality thankfully, otherwise
hacks like me would be floundering around).
The man at the helm
is Beecham, a fluid, elastic but tensile
Wagnerian, eloquently stressing the
cantilever of the string melodies and
bringing the supportive cushion of the
winds to the fore. His cast is stellar
and one that will be broadly known from
other Covent Garden and Met performances.
We hear Weber, "nasty" of tone and insinuating
in 'Hier sitz zur Wacht' as indeed we
can hear Thorborg's Waltraute. With
every newly released disc Thorborg's
stature as a Wagnerian (especially -
she was superb in other repertoire of
course) grows. Elastic lyricism subjected
to strong rhythmic control inform her
exchanges with Leider in Act I Scene
3. The characterisation is powerful,
the histrionic hauteur unmistakeable.
For all the problems
and changeable balances, scrunches and
stage noises we can clearly appreciate
the theatrical drama of the Leider-Thorborg
scenes; Leider is regal and in consistently
compelling form. Melchior's theatrical
projection allied to Olympian vocalism
is as ever magnificent but so in its
more inevitably circumscribed way is
Janssen's Gunther. As we've heard before
in Guild's Met broadcast series Janssen's
very elegance and almost refined impersonation
is an acute musico-psychological perception.
List is full of spittle and sawdust
hectoring in his Act II Scene 4 exchanges
'Dir hilft kein Hirn'. Note here also
the stupendous Concorde-curve of Beecham's
moulding of the string lines (try from
about two minutes into this scene).
Problematic though
this recording is the engineering time
has been well spent. The bonuses are
exciting enough in their own way - the
Act III Immolation Scene from Berlin
and the slightly earlier 1927 extracts.
The catalogue numbers are given in the
body of the text. Note that in the former
Guild have spliced a full orchestral
finale (not included in the commercial
disc) so that if you possess HMV D2025-26
or any subsequent re-releases you will
be in for a little surprise. The extract
is so far unidentified.
Period photographs
of the performers grace the booklet
and there are synopses, biographies
and notes. An imposing addition to the
1930s Wagnerian discography - and in
better-than-hoped-for sound.
Jonathan Woolf
Gramophone – Award's Issue, 2005
Guild has been busy with broadcasts from the Met, and from Covent Garden – sequences from Götterdämmerung Acts 1 and 2 under Thomas Beecham with Melchior, Frida Leider, Herbert Janssen, Kerstin Thorborg, Ludwig Weber and Emanuel List. Leider's Brünnhilde rings resplendent, Beecham is on terrific form and Weber cuts a magnificent Hagen, especially when summoning the vassals (CD-1, track 12). The sound is rather fuller than on many Met relays of the period thought the balances on stage tend to vary. The fill-ups are studio-recorded Wagner excerpts form the 1930s with Leider.
Rob Cowan
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