Parsifal : "modern" recording
DavidD
Thanks.
DavidD
PS : I already had the Knappertsbutsch's recording (1951).
Akiralx
"DavidD" <Dav...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9428BF28E2EA...@193.252.19.141...
You could obviously go with the later Kna (Philips 50) but for digital sound
it's between Karajan and Barenboim I think. I have the latter and like it,
but HvK's Act 3 is very good.
HPLeft
The Goodall has gorgeous sound, but is simply too slow, even for me (someone
who loves his Ring cycle). I haven't heard the Barenboim, but the sound
Teldec typically gives him is outstanding. The Karajan is a fascinating
performance that is, in my opinion, terribly miked. Solti is a pretty much
down the middle performance, with sound that alternates between pretty good
and phony sounding. Knappersbusch '62 is good live, unvarnished stereo,
with some stages noises.
Matt C
Jon A Conrad
>Solti is a pretty much
>down the middle performance, with sound that alternates between pretty good
>and phony sounding.
Myself, I would say that the best of its sound (which goes for most of the
performance) is better than pretty good, though I admit that some points
at which singers were overdubbed after the fact are obtrusive.
However, I would point out that great care was taken with sonic
perspectives in the Grail scenes, more so than on any other recording I've
heard. We can actually hear the "middle dome" and "top of the dome"
distances so carefully specified by Wagner, and the sopranos are boys, as
he wanted (Vienna Choirboys). Just for the sounds of the Grail scenes I'd
hang on to this one, and there are many more reasons (a surprisingly
persuasive Amfortas from DFD, a very complete Kundry from Christa Ludwig,
an unbearably sumptuous Flower Maiden scene led by Lucia Popp and Kiri Te
Kanawa).
Jon Alan Conrad
Department of Music
University of Delaware
con...@udel.edu
Elizabeth Hubbell
[courtesy cc of this rec.music.classical.recordings posting also sent to
David D.]
DavidD wrote:
> Could you recommend a "modern" (i.e. with a good sound) of this works ?
>
> Thanks.
>
> DavidD
Now that I have finally heard the two important Parsifals recently added
to the discography (Fritz Busch from the '30s and Rafael Kubelik from
1980), it seems it's time to reassess the virtues and flaws of the finer
recordings currently available. Out of at least twenty or so mainline
recordings out there, roughly a third of them emerge, IMO, as worthy of
consideration for one's introduction to the work. Two of those are
these newly released Busch and Kubelik sets. That's the good news, and
I give thumbnail assessments of these two under #1 and #5. In fact, the
new Kubelik (#5) is arguably an extremely strong candidate for a truly
excellent and modern-sounding set of the sort the poster is looking for.
However, while I often read the refrain from others that there are a
number of really good ones -- and that therefore it's hard to settle on
just one -- that's frankly not my take, FWIW. I find that no recording
works superbly throughout, although a few come so close that the one
lapse, the one flaw, can be particularly painful, IMO.
With these two new recordings, there are seven in all that stand out,
but they all have flaws. I'll tick them off in chronological order.
1. Having now heard the newly unearthed performance issued on the
MARSTON label -- a 1936 Teatro Colon performance conducted by Fritz
Busch -- I can say this offering now strikes me as having the most
consistent cast on disc. Busch's conducting, while very fine, may not
be a match for Hans Knappertsbusch's ("Kna"), but it is definitely in
the top tier, IMO. And the principals! I find Alexander Kipnis's
Gurnemanz the most insightful and the most sumptuous I've heard.
Tenderness, sorrow, pity, exasperation, anger -- it's all there -- and
an ease of understanding in his integration of the vocal line as
intrinsically a part of a superb drama marks his every utterance.
Marjorie Lawrence's Kundry is almost on the same level, although it's
possible to point to one or two Kundrys who match her (unlike Kipnis's
unique Gurnemanz). Rene Maison's Parsifal may not have the variety of
his two colleagues, but, like them, he is always musical and vocally
attractive. The same with Martial Singher's noble-sounding Amfortas.
The cons? A number of cuts throughout, including 90 lines of Gurnemanz!
In addition, the sound is occasionally primitive, particularly in the
opening measures.
> PS : I already had the Knappertsbutsch's recording (1951).
2. The LP era starts with a 1951 Bayreuth performance, originally
issued by DECCA/LONDON, preserving the opening of Wieland Wagner's famed
Neu Bayreuth production under Hans Knappertsbusch. From this set on,
all the recommended entries are literally complete. For 1951, this
release is in surprisingly fine sound, especially considering the fact
that it's a monaural recording! Its spaciousness and sense of place are
a rarity for that time. In addition, Kna's leadership captures best
both the sweep of this work and its internal world. Some of the
ensemble work may not be the acme of preparedness, and Kna's principals
here, while creditable for the most part, are no more a match for
Busch's than is the case for any other set. However, it's a boon
hearing the young George London's Amfortas before throatiness overcame
him, and Ludwig Weber's Gurnemanz is deeply stirring, the finest
Gurnemanz on disc outside of Kipnis -- and we get to hear him do this
role uncut. Parsifal and Kundry are another matter. Windgassen does a
fair amount of growling (the role appears to lie somewhat low for him),
however dramatically effective he is at certain points. One still
welcomes the innate sound of a voice that, while not sumptuous like
Maison's, is suggestive enough of youth -- and of the callowness that
can go with it. Hardly inappropriate for the role -- at its outset.
Martha Moedl's Kundry is always dramatically acute, imparting astounding
communicative variety to every nook and cranny of this staggeringly
varied role, while imparting true spontaneity at the same time. Nothing
seems calculated. However, we hear her in far superior vocal control
elsewhere.
3. In 1953, Clemens Krauss took over from Kna at Bayreuth. His is a
less internalized reading than Kna's, and therefore, in the end, less
affecting. But he easily matches Fritz Busch at least. And his cast is
better than Kna's -- in a way. The principals are pretty much the same
as in '51. Two significant differences, though: Moedl's Kundry is in
her element now, easily the most inspired and the most satisfying Kundry
on disc, showing us conclusively that she did have a sumptuously
beautiful voice after all as well as an infinitely expressive one, and
Ramon Vinay replaces Wolfgang Windgassen. Vinay was a much finer artist
than Windgassen, with a richer and more expressive voice. However, he
is not in very fresh voice here. There is little suggestion of youth
and many a phrase seems hammered out on an anvil. A shame, since his
finest moments here, and there are a few, can move one more than
Windgassen's best. All told, Windgassen is possibly more convincing in
his overall portrayal, with youth and a (marginally) cleaner line on his
side, despite Vinay's keener insights and coloring. Neither Windgassen
nor Vinay equal Rene Maison. A delightful bonus is the First Flower of
Rita Streich.
4. We're back with Kna again in 1962, first released by PHILIPS. Kna
gives us his finest reading of all here. All his forces are in
excellent fettle, and they and their inspired Maestro give the finest
reading of Wagner's score on disc. In addition, the sound quality is
excellent stereo, giving us possibly the finest sound-picture available
of the unique Bayreuth Festspielhaus sound. This is crucial, since
Wagner composed this score with the Festspielhaus sound specifically in
mind. Hearing this set tells us exactly why. There is a homogeneity to
the instrumental combinations that works magical emotional and mood
transformations throughout. Only when the orchestral colors are
synthesized in the way made possible by the physical placement of the
Festspielhaus musicians and the manner in which sounds are duffused
through the Festspielhaus auditorium can one achieve such
transformations -- "like the shiftings of clouds in the sky"
[paraphrase] as Wagner characterized his writing for Parsifal. The
Parsifal/Kundry pairing here is generally stronger than in '51. With
the youthful Jess Thomas's Parsifal, we appear finally to have caught up
with Maison: meltingly sung and richly expressive, Thomas's Parsifal is
maybe the finest on disc. Irene Dalis's Kundry may not probe as deeply
as Moedl's, but she is certainly engaged enough to be an apt partner for
her fine Parsifal, and her vocalism is astoundingly assured.
Unfortunately, the Gurnemanz of Hans Hotter is an acquired taste. As
profoundly insightful as Kipnis, it is hobbled by a voice in tatters,
IMO. Some will swear that there is authentic music-making here as well
as inspired drama. I simply do not hear that (my failing?). I'm only
aware of a wheezing, tremulous sound that sadly undercuts Gurnemanz's
authority. Even worse, IMO, whatever fleeting musicality Hotter has
left seems positively like Kipnis(!) compared to his colleague's
Amfortas! George London's 1962 Amfortas is a sad comedown from his
grand reading of '51. Throatiness has overtaken his entire instrument,
and there is not an iota of truly telling poetic nuance anywhere. One
critic termed it, I believe(?), a big dark bawl. Couldn't agree more.
Depressing.
5. A just-released, well-engineered set on the ARTS ARCHIVES label
unveils a 1980 studio effort under Rafael Kubelik. Kubelik's is a
long-lined approach with a singing melody over all. Always beautiful
and persuasively phrased. While without the unstinting energy of a
Busch or a Krauss, Kubelik picks his spots for the full urgency heard in
these other two. He is capable of that kind of urgency, but it is
primarily the linear beauty of Wagner's score that stays with one. He
has strong principals for Parsifal, Kundry and Gurnemanz: James King,
Yvonne Minton and Kurt Moll. King does not delve as much into his role
as Maison, Vinay or Thomas, but his sincerity and engagement are
welcome. Minton is as much into her part as Lawrence and also a fine
singer. So is Kurt Moll, whose Gurnemanz is easily in the Weber class.
As for Weikl's Amfortas, he may boast an occasionally attractive tone
and genuine feeling, but his control over his instrument can be uneven:
recurrent unsteadiness and choppy line detract from the general
impression. Still, all in all, this Parsifal makes for an attractive
set, with more consistent principals in general than in any extant
Bayreuth performance, if marginally less sweep than either of the Knas.
6. In 1981, on ERATO, Armin Jordan came out with a studio set where the
conductor as story-teller is paramount. Not that there isn't some fine
musical phrasing here as well, but the tilt is definitely toward the
kind of energy we hear in Busch/Krauss. Jordan is to be commended as
one of the few who achieves a through-line for the tricky first act.
For most of this recording, there may be relatively little that is
particularly profound or noteworthy, but nothing here lacks shape
either: a steady well-controlled reading with a palpable sense of
narrative that is welcome. His cast can boast a trio of artists in the
roles of Parsifal, Kundry and Gurnemanz who know how to convey intimacy
and are expert at relating *to* each other as real characters in a
story. Reiner Goldberg's Parsifal is very much in the James King mold,
not especially profound but simpatico and affecting ebough and, at this
point, still an accomplished vocalist. Yvonne Minton repeats her fine
Kundry. Robert Lloyd's Gurnemanz, I know from experience, was to get
better from here. We already have a beautiful voice and a deeply
expressive one. However, in this early recording, delivery that can be
as poetic as anyone who has ever sung this role (Kipnis included) can
alternate with choppy phrasing. At his best, he towers over all his
colleagues here. At his worst, there are (very occasional) moments of
unsteadiness. Goldberg and Minton seem the more seasoned performers in
general. Unfortunately, Wolfgang Schoene's Amfortas strikes me as pure
ham: unadulterated, anti-poetic, unmusical shtick. This is a solid
recording, however relatively lacking in its full share of incandescent
peaks.
7. Finally, in 1990, Daniel Barenboim led the Berlin forces in a
digital studio recording that in spots shows some of the finest
conducting in the discography, IMO, while being somewhat uncertain in
much of Act I. On the positive side, Barenboim knows how to build a
scene better than anyone of his generation, when he wants to. Exhibit A
would be his Act II. This almost vies with the Kna of '62 in the genius
shown in rendering the steady ratcheting up of tension throughout the
sixty odd minutes of this sequence. Dramatically, his two principals
respond beautifully. Siegfried Jerusalem (Parsifal) and Waltraud Meier
(Kundry) offer as exciting a performance here as Thomas and Dalis for
Kna. In addition, Meier's dramatic acuity is greater than Dalis's,
effective as the latter is. Meier's is one of the finest Kundrys yet.
As for Jerusalem, his is almost as intrinsically attractive an
instrument as Thomas's. But his control of it can be spotty.
Sometimes, the tone has a thrilling ring that can also carry superb
poetic urgency with it. Sometimes, it gets locked up in the throat in a
disconcerting way. The finest Amfortas on disc, IMO, is Jose Van Dam:
all the nobility of Martial Singher, all the insight of the young George
London and a variety of nuance and shading that beggars both. Here is
the prize of this set, IMO. As for Matthias Hoelle's Gurnemanz, it is
slightly more consistently vocalized than Lloyd's, but it too has its
occasional share of vocal uncertainty with nowhere near the richness of
Lloyd's insight and musicianship to compensate nor the intrinsic depths
of Lloyd's instrument.
With a little tweaking here and there, it would have been possible for
any one of these seven sets to emerge as an utterly unflawed entry. How
frustrating it was not to be.
Yet -- right now (and that can change;-) -- I find myself gravitating to
three of these above and beyond the rest. This is not to say that there
aren't fine -- and unique -- aspects in each of the remaining four that
makes each of them a viable enough set by way of introduction to
Wagner's masterpiece. This is why I would not want to be without any of
these seven in the end and why I feel it important that all seven be
cited in this posting. Now would I view it as necessarily unfortunate
were someone limited by circumstance to only one of the remaining four.
After all, since all seven are not quite unflawed anyway.........
The three I tend to go back to the most are the Kna '51 (which David D.
already has), the newly released studio set under Kubelik (why this took
23 years for its release is a mystery!!!!) and the Barenboim recording.
The old Fritz Busch is a potent performance that would win out over
every other were it not for the cuts and the (occasionally) so-so sound.
Still, its restoration is something to be deeply thankful for.
In the "niche" class (those that have something unique to them that
illumines one aspect of the work in an irreplaceable way), the Krauss is
the most excitingly acted of all, the Kna '62 is the most superbly
conducted and miked of all, and the Jordan, of those in modern sound,
may have the greatest naturalness in terms of principals who can relate
to each other and maintain a conversational and narrative flow.
Finally, going back to my (current;-) chief three -- Kna '51, Kubelik,
Barenboim -- I'm growing more and more fascinated with the newly
released Kubelik from '80. There is a wonderful inevitability to this
reading that grows on one. Having lived with many recordings since my
early twenties (in the '70s), I find myself forgetting much of what I've
heard whenever I put this set on!!! That's highly unusual, I find.
I only purchased this one last month (which is when it first came
out[!!!], I believe). But I can't get enough of it, it seems. I've
played it through now at least two or three times, and I'm still looking
forward to the next playing! It's a looooooooong time since I responded
to a recording this way. It seems to get better upon repetition,
something I don't recall ever happening to me with any other Parsifal.
(Its superb engineering certainly doesn't hurt.) In fact, I find I
don't want to hear any other recording these days.
Whether this is merely due to the initial thrill of discovery (it is at
worst _one_ of the very finest sets in the catalogue) or to something in
this reading that is indeed unique after all is still too early to say,
IMO. I want to give myself much more time with this first. Hence my
careful itemization of all seven sets for the time being. And hence my
distinguishing both the Kna '51 and the Barenboim as still competitive
with the Kubelik.
Yes, my favorite now seems to be the Kubelik. But let's see what a year
does..........
Cheers,
Geoffrey Riggs
www.operacast.com
Elizabeth Hubbell
Addendum <sigh> ======================--->
=====================--------> NO_R_ would I view it as necessarily
unfortunate.............<sigh>...........
William Quentin (bloom)
I would recommend the Barenboim recording on Teldec. As far as the
singers are concerned, my only misgivings are Matthias Hoelle as
Gurnemanz and Gunter Von Kannen as Klingsor - the rest of the cast
(Siegfried Jerusalem, Jose Van Dam, Waltraud Meier, etc.) are all very
good. The recording itself sounds fantastic to me, but then I'm no
audiophile.
-Billy
Matthew B. Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:bo67cc$okb$1...@copland.udel.edu:
One thing I remember about the Solti is that the American release of the LP
set was originally scheduled for April 15th of its issue year, but it was
then postponed for a month, because of fear from American executives at
London Records that people wouldn't want to buy it close to Income Tax day.
So you see, the idiot businessman phenomenon is hardly a new one.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
War is Peace. ** Freedom is Slavery. ** It's all Napster's Fault!
DavidD
rec.music.classical.recordings:
> [from Geof. Riggs; not Eliz. H., my better half]
>
> [courtesy cc of this rec.music.classical.recordings posting also sent
to
> David D.]
>
> DavidD wrote:
>
>> Could you recommend a "modern" (i.e. with a good sound) of this works
?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> DavidD
>
> Now that I have finally heard the two important Parsifals recently
added
[...]
> Yes, my favorite now seems to be the Kubelik. But let's see what a
year
> does..........
>
> Cheers,
>
> Geoffrey Riggs
> www.operacast.com
>
In fact, I was hesitating between Baremboim, Kubelik...and Boulez (DG).
Do anyone know the Boulez Parsifal ?
DavidD
Brian Park
news:bo64o4$b8d$1...@newsreaderg1.core.theplanet.net...
>
> "DavidD" <Dav...@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns9428BF28E2EA...@193.252.19.141...
> > Could you recommend a "modern" (i.e. with a good sound) of this works ?
> >
Barenboim on Teldec. And if I'm not mistaken, it's available at Berkshire
for under $30.
Brian Park
Mitchell Kaufman
Easy: the '62 Kna has the best sound of any recorded Parsifal and is
also IMO the best performance.
Any other questions? ;-)
MK
Terry Simmons
<Dav...@nospam.com> wrote:
You should at least try the DGG von Karajan recording. I find it excellent.
--
Cheers!
Terry
Elizabeth Hubbell
Lacks heart -- IMHO, that is.
The singing is solid enough. And even Gwyneth(sp.?) Jones (Kundry) is
somewhat more vocally disciplined than usual, although some still find
her a bit wild here all the same. Personally, I find her fairly
listenable here -- something I don't often do. Furthermore, of all the
principals, she definitely brings the most heart to this performance.
James King (Parsifal), OTOH, brings rock-solid vocalism but an
interpretation that is not so stirring or deeply integrated as in the
Kubelik -- where King pretty much sounds the same vocally, while being
significantly more engaged in the music and the poetry than with Boulez,
IMO.
Crass (Gurnemanz) and Stewart (Amfortas) are perfectly solid vocally, as
well. However, only Stewart, of these two, brings (almost) the kind of
commitment we have from Jones.
While I admire the fact that Boulez achieves the kind of continuity in
this score that just eludes starrier names like Solti, v. Karajan, or
Levine, IMO, Boulez still doesn't bring the same sense of an inner
psychological world to this piece that Kubelik and Barenboim bring --
let alone Knappertsbusch! Reading some of Boulez's notes in the LP
edition, one gets the feeling this may have even been deliberate, and,
in fact, the slight sense of distance is maintained with a fine sense of
craftsmanship, no question. But I wonder whether this approach is
really ideal for one's first experience of Parsifal in state-of-the-art
sound. Shouldn't there be more warmth?
Anyway, one man's opinion.
Cheers,
Geoffrey Riggs
www.operacast.com
David7Gable
Geoffrey, where do you stand on Boulez's two live Bayreuth recordings, one on
DGG, an earlier performance on Melodram? (I personally cannot abide Karajan's
slow sugary recording.)
-david gable
David7Gable
>Do anyone know the Boulez Parsifal ?
I does. At least I know the DGG recording. Several friends who are more
interested in Parsifal than I am believe that his best performances of Parsifal
took place in his first Bayreuth season rather than in 1970 when DGG finally
got around to taping him, but I've never heard the earlier performance made
available by, I think, Melodram. In any case, I think Boulez is the best thing
about the DGG set.
There are many aspects of Wagner's writing to which Boulez is extremely
sympathetic, including Wagner's conception of orchestration, an orchestration
that changes "like clouds," as the composer put it. (Debussy admired it for
similar reasons.) Boulez is obviously enchanted with Wagner's orchestration,
presenting it with a very radiant clarity and purity. Rarely have Wagner's
textures been presented so lucidly, seemed so pellucid, rarely have brass
instruments sounded more gleaming, etc. etc. I'm not convinced that Boulez's
pure but comparatively thin (in a non-pejorative sense of the term: thin as
opposed to beefy) string sound--its light-weight-ness--is echt Deutsch, but
Boulez is undeniably responsive to Wagner's colors.
Second, Boulez is fascinated by more than one aspect of Wagner's continuum.
(The older he's gotten, the more he's found to admire in Wagner and Mahler.)
One is its seamless but flexible continuum. (Actually, such a continuum is not
invariably as characteristic of Parsifal as of Tristan and the later Ring
operas. I'm thinking of those choruses in Act I that sound a bit more like
Kurt Weill than I like.) Boulez is extraordinarily attracted to, deeply
responsive to, a seamless, supple, and flexible continuum of this kind. At the
same time, he's an absolute master of Wagner's long line, and these two
sensitivities are indispensable for Wagner, although it's very hard to put your
finger on the tangible results of my second more platitudinous compliment. (I
do believe in--can hear--what I'm writing about, intangibility and
platitudinousness notwithstanding.)
Boulez is also interested in the kind of "timelessness" that Wagner attempts to
create at certain points in the opera. "Der Raum wird hier die Zeit": "Here
Space becomes time," as Boulez, revealingly quoting Gurnemanz, entitled the
essay he wrote for the Bayreuth program booklet the first time he conducted the
opera. Boulez's own music is fundamentally based on a kind of writing that is
richly developmental and yet, paradoxically, not Beethovenian/dynamic but
"timeless"/spacious/hovering/floating. In short static: characterized by
stasis. To the extent that this kind of conception is already found in
Parsifal, Boulez is very sensitive to it. Finally, he is also extremely
responsive to the voluptuous writing for the Flower Maidens.
In the end, though, Boulez is "Parsifal for people who hate Parsifal," as
somebody wickedly put it. Or at least the Parsifal that has come down to us in
some performances within the work's performance history. Boulez's orchestral
sound is lighter in weight, leaner, more pure, more shiny bright, than Wagner
himself ever imagined. Where Wagner painted with thick rich oil paints, Boulez
is all French "son et lumière." Boulez's conception of phrasing is also not
entirely echt Wagnerian. Boulez's responsiveness to Wagner's subtly
fluctuating tempi and long line are utterly Wagnerian, but his conception of
phrasing, a phrasing based on a seamless conception, although a post-Wagnerian
development, differs from Wagner's at the most immediate level. Wagner's
continuous phrasing, his "unending melody," was rooted in a more old fashioned
conception of phrasing, a conception based on series of explicitly shaped
gestures at the immediate level. Wagner took these old fashioned phrases and
swallowed them up within a more seamless continuum, but those constituent
gestures and phrases are still there. Phrasing involves (in part) the creation
of the dynamic envelopes that envelop the harmonic/rhythmic "sentences" or
phrases that constitute the building blocks in the larger form. Boulez's very
subtle and refined envelopes with their narrow ambitus, Boulez's continuous
phrasing controlled as if by rheostat, downplay the individual grandiloquent
gesture, subsuming the whole within a kind of seamlessly unfolding pure
filament of sound. To the extent that Boulez is Wagner's future, he conducts
Wagner's future. But the immediate gestures are comparatively slighted in a
manner Wagner could never have foreseen.
All too few people are aware of how extraordinarily refined an ear this guy
has. Misapprehending what he's about as a composer, they imagine failings in
his performances that simply aren't there (or, when they are, attribute them to
the wrong causes). Far from being a heartless and clinical machine, Boulez is
all suppleness and nuance and understatement and weightlessness. But Wagner is
all flexibility and gesture and grandiloquence and weight. I've presented both
sides of the argument about Boulez's performance, the utterly Wagnerian and the
unconsciously revisionist, because they're both there in his performance
(although this post badly needs re-editing and reorganization and
clarification, but there you have it.) If you want to hear Boulez's very
special sensibility responding to a work that deeply interests him, you'll hear
some very interesting and fundamental aspects of Wagner in his performance.
For certain other kinds of expressivity, and particularly the kinds of
expressivity that depend on a much more muscular and distinctive sense of
phrasing, a phrasing using larger and less refined gestures than Boulez likes,
go somewhere else. (Boulez's faster than usual tempi are not at all
un-Wagnerian: his tempi are slower than Levi's at Bayreuth in Wagner's
lifetime.)
P.S. I'm not wild about Boulez's singers. Not that they're a total disaster.
You'd be hard pressed to find a Parsifal as good as James King today, but I
still don't think he's the second coming. His voice is not as fresh at the
beginning of his career, and there is not enough interpretive insight to make
up for the loss in freshness. Gwyneth Jones's voice is not yet completely torn
to shreds, certainly not to the extent that it will be in Boulez's Siegfried,
but it's already hard to take anywhere above the staff. Too bad. She's an
intelligent singer.
-david gable
David7Gable
People charge Boulez with a lack of warmth and often attribute the lack to his
interest in (a presumed) heartless, soulless "modern" music. It is in fact a
matter of temperament and culture, and the charge misses--misunderstands--the
target. There is a whole century and a half long French tradition that is
given the creeps by the hot sweaty bear hug of late German Romanticism.
(Manet, Monet, Degas, Rimbaud, Debussy, etc.) "Do you never weep in verse,
Monsieur Mallarmé?" "No, nor blow my nose." ("Non, ni me mouche.") Debussy
and Boulez are also French/secretive. They believe the secret emotion is the
real one, not the one on somebody's sleeve. They prefer inference to making
explicit. Argue that the Frenchman is therefore temperamentally unsuited to
conduct Wagner--but Wagner is one of the composers that Boulez is in many
respects the very best suited to--but don't simply say that Boulez is "cold."
And Parsifal is a different kind of opera from the other nine canonical Wagner
operas: it's not essentially a love story. There is a lot of volupté in
Parsifal and a lot of "religious" "purity." The volupté and purity are right
up Boulez's alley. I'm also surprised that Geofrey doesn't see from the Boulez
essay how interested in Kundry's psychology Boulez is.
-david gable
Andrew T. Kay
I just reacquainted myself with this over the weekend, as I've been working my
way through the Solti box containing all the non-_Ring_ operas, so it's fresh
in my mind. While I agree down the line with what you single out as its great
strengths (DFD, Ludwig, and the Flowermaidens as a group), I found this
_Parsifal_ as a whole lacking -- neither a gripping performance in its moments
nor, ultimately, a moving one in its aggregate. I have to blame Solti here; I
don't think, on the evidence at hand, _Parsifal_ was his "A-game" Wagner. The
VPO's playing is shipshape, but if there's any mystery, eroticism, or
spirituality behind the notes, or even a strong sense of continuity to the
reading, I'm too dense to hear it. I join HPLeft's "middle of the road" and I'd
even go as far as "lightweight." It does have a better Kundry than is to be
found on two later "state-of-the-art" sets recommended in this thread,
Karajan's (DGG) and Barenboim's, but it must be ranked behind those in most
other aspects. (None of these three sets has a great interpreter of the title
role, IMO.)
I doubt I'll find much agreement among this group, but I find more beauty and a
more vivid atmosphere in the Karajan/DGG than I've heard in any other
performance (and his Grail scenes are at least *as* sonically impressive, IMO,
as Solti's). If this had a Kundry and Parsifal that matched the rest of its
cast (say, Ludwig as heard for Solti, and Vickers as heard for
Knappertsbursch), I'd happily make it my "island choice."
--Todd K
Andante teneramente
Very interesting. So *that's* why Boulez can't conduct Wagner.
Great post!
--
Regards
Elizabeth Hubbell
David7Gable wrote:
>>Shouldn't there be more warmth?
>
>
> People charge Boulez with a lack of warmth and often attribute the lack to his
> interest in (a presumed) heartless, soulless "modern" music. It is in fact a
> matter of temperament and culture, and the charge misses--misunderstands--the
> target. There is a whole century and a half long French tradition that is
> given the creeps by the hot sweaty bear hug of late German Romanticism.
> (Manet, Monet, Degas, Rimbaud, Debussy, etc.) "Do you never weep in verse,
> Monsieur Mallarmé?" "No, nor blow my nose." ("Non, ni me mouche.") Debussy
> and Boulez are also French/secretive. They believe the secret emotion is the
> real one, not the one on somebody's sleeve. They prefer inference to making
> explicit. Argue that the Frenchman is therefore temperamentally unsuited to
> conduct Wagner--but Wagner is one of the composers that Boulez is in many
> respects the very best suited to--but don't simply say that Boulez is "cold."
Two points, if I may.
A) Although I feel it may be an overstatement to say that Boulez is the
very best suited, I have always recognized the truth of what David has
already said in another post far more succinctly than I could:
"Boulez is extraordinarily attracted to, deeply responsive to, a
seamless, supple, and flexible continuum of this kind. At the same
time, he's an absolute master of Wagner's long line, and these two
sensitivities are indispensable for Wagner, although it's very hard to
put your finger on the tangible results of my second more platitudinous
compliment."
It may be platitudinous, but it's a %@^&^$%&^* sight more precise and to
the point than anything I wrote. So thank you.
I previously referred in a general way to Boulez's greater sense of
continuity, compared to Solti, v. Karajan, or Levine. David has
spotlighted precisely how that is the case.
And lest I be construed as a knee-jerk Boulez basher, let me say that I
have jettisoned from my collection
1) the earlier Levine Parsifal (the one with Hofmann and Meier from
Bayreuth [I was there, and found its visceral impact positive primarily
because of Goetz Friedrich's personnenregie (sp.?), regardless of its
rather weird context, finding out afterwards that that positive strength
did not translate clearly to recording because of Levine's stop/start
{IMO} approach]),
2) the studio v. Karajan (also with Hofmann), and
3) the Solti (even though I emphatically believe that Ludwig may well be
the very finest Kundry any of us will ever hear -- but I have Ludwig
already on a hair-raising Met broadcast that I also attended where she
was partnered by none other than Jon Vickers:-):-):-):-):-)(!!!!!!!)
where Levine's so-so [IMO] approach seems to affect the overall impact
less adversely than Solti's and where Vickers is clearly a more positive
presence than Kollo [this Ludwig/Vickers Parsifal remains, in any case,
my most treasured experience ever at the opera]).
But, OTOH, I've held on to the Boulez set for the simple reason that I
do like it more than I dislike it, precisely because it demonstrates
that kind of sensitivity to Wagner's long line that one hears but hears
only intermittently, IMO, in Levine, v. Karajan, and Solti. (I have
never had the urge to get Levine's second set, made in the studio, with
Domingo/Norman, even though I have admired Norman much in a number of
things. I may yield to the temptation at some point in the future,
although I already have the b'cast she made with Domingo and Levine in
'91.)
B) The reason why I did not cite the Boulez in my initial posting is
because, while I find it worth keeping for myself, I honestly do wonder
whether one's _first_ modern-sounding set should have the following
characteristic (and again David has put this succinctly):
"Boulez's responsiveness to Wagner's subtly fluctuating tempi and long
line are utterly Wagnerian, but his conception of phrasing, a phrasing
based on a seamless conception, although a post-Wagnerian development,
differs from Wagner's at the most immediate level. Wagner's continuous
phrasing, his "unending melody," was rooted in a more old fashioned
conception of phrasing, a conception based on series of explicitly
shaped gestures at the immediate level. Wagner took these old fashioned
phrases and swallowed them up within a more seamless continuum, but
those constituent gestures and phrases are still there. Phrasing
involves (in part) the creation of the dynamic envelopes that envelop
the harmonic/rhythmic "sentences" or phrases that constitute the
building blocks in the larger form. Boulez's very subtle and refined
envelopes with their narrow ambitus, Boulez's continuous phrasing
controlled as if by rheostat, downplay the individual grandiloquent
gesture, subsuming the whole within a kind of seamlessly unfolding pure
filament of sound. To the extent that Boulez is Wagner's future, he
conducts Wagner's future. But the immediate gestures are comparatively
slighted in a manner Wagner could never have foreseen."
.....ahem.......Pelleas anyone?;-)
At any rate, David has well described here that specific characteristic
that I -- being platitudinous now myself;-) -- would term "lack of
warmth". It is precisely Boulez's style of phrasing that imparts -- for
me -- a distancing effect on _some_ of the drama.
> I'm also surprised that Geofrey doesn't see from the Boulez
> essay how interested in Kundry's psychology Boulez is.
Yes, Boulez, both in his annotations and in his execution, demonstrates
undeniable acuity in presenting Kundry. But much of the rest is indeed
distanced all the same, IMO.
So I would slot this as a good recording, but one that's worth having
only after one has already acquired a modern-sounding set that can boast
the sort of (admittedly rare) combination of continuity _plus_ grandeur
heard in a Kubelik or a Knappertsbusch.
Incidentally, other sets that I also find more good than bad and that
I've kept, but that I do not see as ideal introductions either, would
include the (somewhat cut) Cluytens performance with
Konya/Gorr/Christoff, the Goodall with Ellsworth/Meier/McIntyre [in
amazing form here, BTW, and I don't usually enjoy him that much] and the
(badly recorded) '38 MET broadcast under Bodanzky/Leinsdorf [sic] with
Melchior/Flagstad/List [3/4-second snippets missing every time a disc
was changed]. I even find it worthwhile to hear Gui's conducting of the
score, although in Italian translation with a number of cuts and with an
APPALLING Parsifal, IMO, offset by Panerai's deeply sensitive Amfortas
and Callas's uncannily probing Kundry.
Cheers,
Geoffrey Riggs
www.operacast.com
Elizabeth Hubbell
> Incidentally, other sets that I also find more good than bad and that
> I've kept, but that I do not see as ideal introductions either, would
> include the (somewhat cut) Cluytens performance with
> Konya/Gorr/Christoff, the Goodall with Ellsworth/Meier/McIntyre [in
> amazing form here, BTW, and I don't usually enjoy him that much] and the
> (badly recorded) '38 MET broadcast under Bodanzky/Leinsdorf [sic] with
> Melchior/Flagstad/List [3/4-second snippets missing every time a disc
> was changed]. I even find it worthwhile to hear Gui's conducting of the
> score, although in Italian translation with a number of cuts and with an
> APPALLING Parsifal, IMO, offset by Panerai's deeply sensitive Amfortas
> and Callas's uncannily probing Kundry.
OOPS!====> And, of course, Kna's last Parsifal at Bayreuth (1964), with
Jon Vickers!!
> Cheers,
>
Geoffrey Riggs
www.operacast.com
Ryan Hare
"David7Gable" <david...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20031104004627...@mb-m20.aol.com...
[many interesting remarks about Boulez's DGG Parsifal.]
Well said, David. Thanks for all that.
I'm making my way now, finally, through the Boulez DVD set of Wagner's Ring
of Nibelungs. I am wholly in agreement with your comments as they apply to
this. There are many, many amazing musical things in Boulez's Wagner. His is
an interpretation I find emotionally stirring, fascinating, and insightful.
Boulez's Ring frankly does much more for me musically than Solti's or
Levine's, sadly the only two others with which I am familiar. Perhaps this
means I'm not really "in tune" with traditional notions about Wagner's
musical world, but that is fine with me. I guess I'm glad that
somebody--Boulez in this case--can intrepret Wagner in way that does a lot
for me.
Ryan
Stephen Worth
<elizabet...@verizon.net> wrote:
> OOPS!====> And, of course, Kna's last Parsifal at Bayreuth (1964), with
> Jon Vickers!!
That one is my favorite. I don't care if it's mono. The sound is still
great.
See ya
Steve
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David7Gable
>means I'm not really "in tune" with traditional notions about Wagner's
>musical world, but that is fine with me. I guess I'm glad that
>somebody--Boulez in this case--can intrepret Wagner in way that does a lot
>for me.
Thanks for the kind words concerning my remarks on Boulez. Appreciating Boulez
doesn't necessarily mean you wouldn't like the Wagner of Furtwängler or
Knappertsbusch, of course. They aren't slow pokes in this repertory, either.
(The RIng, that is.) At the most immediate level, their phrasing in Wagner is
at the antipodes from Boulez's, and not to be believed. I'm not sure I'll ever
recover from hearing Knappertsbusch's canny pulling of the strings at points in
the Götterdämmerung on Testament, although the performance overall is
underrehearsed, the ensemble occasionally sloppy, the singing less than
spectacular. Boulez, by the way, is a fairly recent convert to Knappertbusch
in late German Romantic repertory.
One thing we are undeniably missing these days is big fat gorgeous Wagnerian
voices, the Leider's, Flagstad's, Traubel's, Lehmann's, Melchior's, and
Schorr's. I do hope you get a chance to hear some of these old timers one of
these days. Gwyneth Jones at the end of her career is really not the same
thing.
One place to hear what Boulez can really do with phrasing is a live BBC SO
Mahler 6, the scherzo. His use of tempo rubato there and the manner in which
he delineates each statement of the various motives are really spectacular.
Virtuosic technical control.
-david gable
Ryan Hare
> Thanks for the kind words concerning my remarks on Boulez. Appreciating
Boulez
> doesn't necessarily mean you wouldn't like the Wagner of Furtwängler or
> Knappertsbusch, of course. They aren't slow pokes in this repertory,
either.
> (The RIng, that is.)
Until quite recently, any Wagner outside Tristan was foreign territory for
me, aside from a few orchestra selections (Overtures, Preludes, etc.) I've
heard F. and Kna. in those, and appreciated it. I think I'm only know
getting to a point in my life where I can truly appreciate Wagner;
previously (excepting Tristan) it's seemed largely moribund and excessively,
otiosely German to me. But...I think I'm starting to get it. I'll spend some
more time with F. and Kna.'s Wagner as per your recommendation.
> One thing we are undeniably missing these days is big fat gorgeous
Wagnerian
> voices, the Leider's, Flagstad's, Traubel's, Lehmann's, Melchior's, and
> Schorr's. I do hope you get a chance to hear some of these old timers one
of
> these days. Gwyneth Jones at the end of her career is really not the same
> thing.
Indeed. I have heard some of these singers you mention, but only, I'm sad to
say, in excerpts. But, WOW.
> One place to hear what Boulez can really do with phrasing is a live BBC SO
> Mahler 6, the scherzo. His use of tempo rubato there and the manner in
which
> he delineates each statement of the various motives are really
spectacular.
> Virtuosic technical control.
Well, I'm still quivering from his recentish Mahler 3 with on DGG with the
VPO (despite the bad edit in the 3rd mvt). It's my fave Mahler 3 now!
Ryan
jszostaksr
grow older (60+) I find myself drawn to 'Parsifal' more with each passing
day. Wagner really did outdo himself in this opera. So much so that I don't
think even HE realized how very much that is so. I agree about the 'Kna'
readings...really old school Wagner. I must grab a copy of the Kubelik.
I worked with Jim King in the LOC production of 'Carmen'...one of his last.
He told me he just wanted to see if he could still do it. He could!! But
what a heldentenor! And I don't think I will ever hear the likes of his
'Frau ohne Schatten' 'Emperor'
Very nice Geof....very nice indeed.
Jon E. Szostak, Sr.
"Elizabeth Hubbell" <elizabet...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:3FA6A90E...@verizon.net...