Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Orchestral Music from Der Ring Des Nibelungen, Die Meistersinger & Tristan und Isolde
Cleveland Orchestra/George Szell
Contents beneath review
rec. 1962 & 1968, Severance Hall, Cleveland Ohio, USA
Sony Classical SBK 48175 [77] ADD

Back in the day, this was awarded a Penguin Guide Rosette and one can hear why. It is beautifully recorded in full warm, analogue sound offering nearly eighty minutes of immaculately played orchestral excerpts from some of Wagner’s major works, eschewing indulgence but embracing grandeur, evincing tonal splendour, especially from the horns, and a sweep and concentration which place it on the same level as Karajan’s work with the BPO. It is of course typically rhythmically taut and disciplined but in no wise stiff and even if old Wagner hands miss the voices, they will find themselves croaking along.

A highlight is the magnificent Siegfried’s Funeral Music, where the horns again excel and the clarity of the sound and articulation is striking; this record is a showcase for an orchestra at its zenith – how wonderful it would have been had they been able to record a Ring with voices in that period; the nearest they ever came was the first two “Bühnenfestspiele” of the tetralogy conducted by their then music director Christoph von Dohnányi in the early 1990s, by which time Szell had been dead twenty years and the age of great Wagner voices was past; the project was abandoned when Decca dropped the orchestra.

Another contrasting highlight is the overture to Die Meistersinger. Warmth and geniality are not perhaps the first qualities associated with Szell but this account is replete with those qualities. The concert-form arrangement of the Prelude and “Liebestod” from Tristan und Isolde might not have quite the sensuality of Karajan’s versions but it is played with enormous brilliance and intensity and builds very satisfyingly; the cor anglais solo passages towards the end of the Prelude before the transition to the “Liebestod” are especially atmospheric. If you love this music as I do, you will find yourself drinking it all in, in one sitting; the vibrancy of the strings is such that you will hardly regret the absence of the soprano.

This has been released in various guises on both sides of the Atlantic and is better known in the USA as “Wagner without Words” and in some issues provides short measure, having been shorn of the non-Ring excerpts. Be sure to acquire the full 77-minute incarnation, either as a download or in CD form.

Ralph Moore

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Contents:           
Das Rheingold  
Einzug der Götter in Walhall (Szene 4)    
Die Walküre      
Walkürenritt (Akt III, Szene 1)     
Wotans Feuerzauber (Akt III, Szene 3)     
Siegfried             
Waldweben (Akt II, Szene 2)       
Götterdämmerung         
Morgendämmerung Und Siegfrieds Rheinfahrt (Prolog)  
Trauermarsch und Finale (Akt III, Szene 2 und 3)
Die Meistersinger Von Nürnberg
Vorspiel zum I. Aufzug   
Tristan und Isolde            
Vorspiel Zum I. Aufzug und Isoldes Liebestod