Question for Ring Heads about the two Janowski/Dresden reissues

[wanwan]

Okay you Ring Heads who bought both issues, Any difference in sound quality between the deluxe box & the no libretto set? Couldn't find anything in the archives or on Amazon actually comparing the two.

Odd thing about the LP issues was that I never could find anything except Rheingold & Walkure as cutouts, never the other two, so i never heard the whole cycle. Being a Staatskapelle Dresden fan, I'd like to hear what the orchestra sounded like in the Siegfried and Gotterdammerung.

-------
Eric

[wkasimer]

On Thursday, March 20, 2014 5:41:02 AM UTC-4, wanwan wrote:

> Okay you Ring Heads who bought both issues, Any difference in sound quality between the deluxe box & the no libretto set? <

I don't hear any difference, and I don't believe that BMG claimed remastering of the deluxe set. Given the price, I can't imagine why anyone would choose to buy anything other than the deluxe box, now selling at Amazon for $36.

> Odd thing about the LP issues was that I never could find anything except Rheingold & Walkure as cutouts, never the other two, so i never heard the whole cycle. <

I think that Siegfried is the best part of Janowski's Dresden cycle.

Bill

[Willem Orange]

I have the original LPs sets mainly because of the gorgeous illustrations - other than few vocal performances I though the whole thing superfluous though others don't agree

[wkasimer]

On Thursday, March 20, 2014 7:50:45 AM UTC-4, Willem Orange wrote:

> I have the original LPs sets mainly because of the gorgeous illustrations - other than few vocal performances I thought the whole thing superfluous though others don't agree <

What makes it nonsuperfluous for me is that the cast is strongest in roles that are often weakest in other sets - Loge (Schreier), Siegmund (Jerusalem), and Siegfried (Kollo). I'm no fan of Kollo but his young Siegfried is excellent.

Bill

[jrsnfld]

On Thursday, March 20, 2014 8:18:45 AM UTC-7, wkasimer wrote:
> On Thursday, March 20, 2014 7:50:45 AM UTC-4, Willem Orange wrote:

> What makes it nonsuperfluous for me is that the cast is strongest in roles that are often weakest in other sets - Loge (Schreier), Siegmund (Jerusalem), and Siegfried (Kollo). I'm no fan of Kollo but his young Siegfried is excellent.

It's the only Ring featuring Staatskapelle Dresden: that's a compelling reason to have it.

--Jeff

[Willem Orange]

yes and that's one of the strong points

[sabi...@gmail.com]

I lurk here, sending a message once every ten years or so. The Janowski Ring comes cheap in Sony's weird Wagner box available at www.arkivmusic.com for US$29.99. No librettos, of course, but there will be 26 bonus discs, which is really the way one has to look on this box. There was no point in my buying the DG or EMI boxes last year because I have nearly all the recordings. Of the Sony I had three out of forty CDs, The Melchior/Traubel set originally on Masterworks Heritage and a Flagstad recital. One can also find this box for 29.99 euros, at JPC.

For those who are interested, here is a review I decided not to post to Amazon:

Nearly all the complete operas in this large Sony box of Wagner have warts, but it should not be dismissed out of hand. It can give great pleasure, as well as entertain those who have other recordings of Wagner's works. I am much less bothered than many critics by Leinsdorf's overheated Lohengrin and Lucine Amara's miscast Elsa. Sándor Kónya sings with an unworldly beauty, a true emissary of Montsalvat. As for Amara, she is not so much bad as just wrong for the part, as if Nedda or Musetta decided to take a turn at Elsa. For a truly awful Elsa one can turn to Helena Döse in Gösta Winbergh's otherwise wonderful recital, CD 30 in this box. For a great Elsa, Helen Traubel under the magical Artur Rodzinski is on CD 32.

It first needs to be said, however, that the major draw of this box, my reason for purchasing it, is the inclusion of the Janowski Ring cycle, which has also been available as a budget box and as a mid price edition with libretti. The recording and the Dresden orchestra are splendid, the overall effect being much lighter than that of the Solti cycle, but at times more perceptive. René Kollo as Siegfried is more fluent here than he would be live for Sawallisch in the new EMI Wagner box. Much will depend on how the listener reacts to Theo Adam's Wotan, recorded more than a decade after the Böhm Ring cycle in the DG Bayreuth box. In general Janowski singers are more agreeable than those found in the Levine and Haitink's cycles, both now reissued in bargain boxes, especially Siegfried Jerusalem and Jessye Norman in Die Walküre. Janowski's response to the drama is more alive, but one would not prefer this cycle to those of Solti or Keilberth. If, however, you are going to acquire a digital Ring in a bargain box, Sony (Janowski) is preferable to the other bargain box cycles, including Barenboim's (Warner). Whether you go for Janowski here or in one of its other incarnations depends on whether you are interested in enough of the other items in the box and you do not need libretti. If you are new to Wagner and want to find all his major theater works in one place, then I think the Solti Wagner box or the recently reissued Decca Bayreuth box are the best buys.

I like big budget boxes because they include recordings I would never think of purchasing, surprises and 'fascinating duds'. This is the case of the other three operas here, a live and chipper Meistersinger under Keilberth in 1963, a lugubrious Dutchman under Levine and an eccentric Parsifal retread under von Karajan. Missing pieces of this Parsifal were patched with a different performance, there are two Kundrys, the sound is 'pirate' quality. If you can get by these limitations, the performance is enthralling, especially the second act. Christa Ludwig's Kundry is hot. Hotter is less feeble here than he would be a few years later for Knappertsbusch on Philips.

Sony includes recitals to make up for the two missing works, Tristan und Isolde and Tannhäuser. (But there is a strange, wordless Tannhäuser from Maazel in Pittsburgh. I listened to it in the car, which was the right place for it.) Melchior and Traubel do not sing together on their set, originally issued in the Masterworks Heritage series and long unavailable except as an expensive Arkiv reissue. The sound is good for the 40's. For Traubel one puts up with Torsten Ralf's elderly sounding Tristan. Kurt Baum's voice, in another Act III Lohengrin excerpt, is much better than that served up by my memory of performances in the fifties. The Waltraud Meier recital is interesting even if most would not wish to hear her sing Brünnhilde on the stage. When one puts on the Eileen Farrell recital (CD 34), one immediately hears what is wrong: Meier's handling of words is intelligent, the voice is pleasant, but it doesn't open up. Farrell gleams as Brünnhilde under Bernstein. Only Kirsten Flagstad (CD 31) trumps her, but the 1939 sound mitigates in favor of Farrell.

I was a Gösta Winbergh fan and this box was a way of getting a long out of print recital (CD 30). Leaving aside the Lohengrin bridal scene, it is very good, but no one would say that Winbergh's Lohengrin is as sensitive as Kónya's. One also gets to hear excerpts of Peter Hofmann's Lohengrin, which is less refulgent. A Walküre Act I with Hofmann and Eva Marton, conducted in a mannered fashion by Zubin Mehta, is dull. It seems that Hofmann is recorded further back from the microphones than Marton. (If you want Hofmann's Siegmund, the Boulez cycle on DVD catches him at his best.) Perhaps the weirdest item in this box is the last disc, a piano duo set of Wagner bonbons that borders on camp. 19th century drawing room entertainment, it includes pieces by Halévy and Herz arranged by Wagner. Makes one wonder why Sony didn't throw into the box its Anna Russell Wagner send-ups.

[O]

In article <e9a1695b-3037-4d6b...@googlegroups.com>,

<"arra...@hotmail.com"> wrote:

> On Thursday, March 20, 2014 6:41:02 AM UTC-3, wanwan wrote:
> > Okay you Ring Heads who bought both issues, Any difference in sound quality
> > between the deluxe box & the no libretto set? Couldn't find anything in the
> > archives or on Amazon actually comparing the two.
> >
> >
> >
> > Odd thing about the LP issues was that I never could find anything except
> > Rheingold & Walkure as cutouts, never the other two, so i never heard the
> > whole cycle. Being a Staatskapelle Dresden fan, I'd like to hear what the
> > orchestra sounded like in the Siegfried and Gotterdammerung.
> >
> >
> >
> > -------
> >
> > Eric
>
> I lurk here, sending a message once every ten years or so.

<snip>

Hey Arraigar. Nice post! Maybe you could post more often, cut it down
to every nine years or so? Kidding aside, well written and readable,
and the kind of post everybody likes to see here. Please feel free to
chime in any time you like.

-Owen

[Dana John Hill]

On 3/20/2014 7:43 AM, wkasimer wrote:
> On Thursday, March 20, 2014 5:41:02 AM UTC-4, wanwan wrote:
>
>> Okay you Ring Heads who bought both issues, Any difference in sound
>> quality between the deluxe box & the no libretto set? <
>
> I don't hear any difference, and I don't believe that BMG claimed
> remastering of the deluxe set. Given the price, I can't imagine why
> anyone would choose to buy anything other than the deluxe box, now
> selling at Amazon for $36.
>

No kidding! Even if the cycle, like every other Ring, has its flaws,
Sony did almost everything right with this reissue. Less than $40 for a
complete Ring with texts and translations is practically a gift.

Dana John Hill
Gainesville, Florida

[wanwan]

Thanks to all for the feedback. ArkivMusic has the deluxe set even cheaper than Amazon. With all the hype on the no frills box, I was hoping there would be an improvement in sound...oh well.

-----------------
Eric

[weary flake]

"arra...@hotmail.com" <sabi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, March 20, 2014 6:41:02 AM UTC-3, wanwan wrote:
> > Okay you Ring Heads who bought both issues, Any difference in sound quality between
> > the deluxe box & the no libretto set? Couldn't find anything in the archives or on Amazon
> > actually comparing the two.
>

> The Janowski Ring comes cheap in Sony's weird Wagner box available at www.arkivmusic.com
> for US$29.99. No librettos, of course, but there will be 26 bonus discs, which is
> really the way one has to look on this box.

The deluxe version with printed librettos, etc., is also listed at $29.99.

> I like big budget boxes because they include recordings I would never think of purchasing,
> surprises and 'fascinating duds'.

Me too, so the case is made to buy both boxes, even with the duplication,
though I've only bought the deluxe Ring. It's so seldom that a choice
is given in an opera of having the same edition with a printed libretto
and one without, so the printed version was an easy choice.

[wade]

or you buy the ENO opera guides for the four Ring operas which have pretty intelligently devised translations and dont have the additional expense of two copies of the same recording. check out Amazon for used copies of those booklets

[jrsnfld]

On Friday, March 21, 2014 9:04:25 AM UTC-7, weary flake wrote:

> It's so seldom that a choice
> is given in an opera of having the same edition with a printed libretto
> and one without, so the printed version was an easy choice.

For me the easy choice was to buy Janowski's Dresden Ring with no printed libretto, because it was absurdly cheap and finding a libretto is never a problem.

--Jeff