This is an audio-only (i.e., with no video content) Blu-ray disc playable only on Blu-ray players.

It is also available on standard CD.

Taken from two concert performances in January, 2015, this is the first installment of an entire Ring Cycle from the Hong Kong Philharmonic under Jaap van Zweden to be recorded by Naxos. It makes you hungry for the rest.

The recording is clean and clear, with no artificial anything. Van Zweden’s approach is closest in memory to Herbert von Karajan’s–intimate and chamber-like, a family drama that happens to be played out in magical, mythological terms. Also like Karajan, van Zweden takes his time (at 2 hours and 33 minutes, this is on the longish side) and offers seamless segues between scenes. When a solo instrument is featured in Wagner’s dense orchestration, it is given a spotlight, and beautiful moments are to be bathed in–the motif after the Rainbow Bridge is created and the singing that follows rarely have sounded so tuneful and lovely. The Hong Kong Philharmonic is not Berlin or Vienna or the Met, but it has nothing to fear–the playing throughout is smooth and handsome. The opening Rhine passage is dark but clear, the piling up of the gold in Scene IV is beautifully built, and the opera’s final moments are indeed the grandest, as they should be–one of the few instances when van Zweden pulls out all the stops.

The storytelling is at the fore; impeccable diction is the order of the day. As revolting as Alberich always is, we can actually hear the flirtatious playfulness in the opera’s opening moments until he realizes that he doesn’t have a chance. And from then on, he’s simply vile–Peter Sidhom sings with an audible sneer and a ringing top to the voice that we rarely get in this role. He’s a baritone with remarkable “face”.

The back and forth between the fine, unexaggerated Fricka of Michelle De Young and the remarkable, surprising Wotan of Matthias Goerne is natural and familiar, and Goerne is the surprise of the performance. His experience and expertise as a Lieder singer comes in very handy in this opera: his interacting with Loge and his cajoling of Mime and Alberich all are textually and dynamically right-on. The bottom of the voice sounds remarkably rich, and while the top notes are brighter than we normally hear, he has authority. One wonders, however, about his Walküre Wotan….

David Cangelosi’s slimy Mime is vivid and actually sung–note for note, and Kim Begley’s Loge is performed with wonderful detachment: he knows he’s smarter than anyone else. Deborah Humble’s Erda could have been darker-hued, but her attention to the text turns her scene into the “event” it should be. Anna Samuil’s Freia is much like every other soprano’s who sings the part: good at complaining and being afraid. Kwangchul Youn’s Fasolt is on a grand scale; Stephen Milling’s Fafner not so much. Froh, small part though it is, deserves a better profile than Charles Reid gives it, and the Donner of Oleksandr Pushniak begins his “Heda…” on an unsteady note but recovers quickly. The Rhinemaidens–Eri Nakamura, Aurhelia Varak, and Hermine Haselböck–are a terrific, articulate, tuneful trio...


First choice among Rheingolds is still the Decca, but Testament’s release of a 1955 Bayreuth performance with Hans Hotter is certainly in the running, and as a non-gimmicky performance, may even be better. But this new set gives a wonderful overall view of this opera, and at a remarkable price.

-- Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

Der fliegende Holländer is considered to be the first 'true' Wagner opera. The story of the phantom ship and it's haunted master becomes a sensually charged drama with love and tragic sacrifice at it's heart, and this original 1841 version leaves the ultimate redemption of it's central characters unresolved. Wagner originally conceived the opera for Paris, so it is fitting that this production from the Theater an der Wien is driven by French director Olivier Py's unique vision, with a staging that dispels many of the misconceptions surrounding Wagner's art.

Velvety sound of unmatched beauty (The Guardian) "Musically, this 'Ring' blew away everything that had gone before - and we are talking about a performance history of more than one hundred years." (Die Welt) "Christian Thielemann creates a sound paradise." (Süddeutsche Zeitung) "Tcherniakov, as usual, manages details on a level rarely seen in opera." (The New York Times) "A dream cast of voices" (Le Monde) "Wagner at his best." (BR Klassik) "Spectacular und breath-takingly precise, that's how Thielemann illuminates the Wagner score." (NZZ) "Michael Volle's Wotan [...] is an event, [...] Rolando Villazón plays a fabulous Loge." (FAZ)

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

English-speaking audiences have always found Die Meistersinger to be a life-enhancing celebration of wisdom, art and song. So it proves in David McVicar's production – the first at Glyndebourne – which is updated to the early-19th century of Wagner's childhood. At the centre of a true ensemble cast is Gerald Finley, a 'gleamingly sung', 'eminently believable' Sachs (The Independent on Sunday), supported by the dynamic conducting of Vladimir Jurowski which, like McVicar's production, uses Glyndebourne's special intimacy to bring sharp focus to bear on the subtlety of Wagner's musical and dramatic counterpoint.

McVicar has put on a great show with style, intelligence and insight. -- The Telegraph

Musically, it was judged faultlessly for the scale of the theatre by Vladimir Jurowski, who conjured playing of mercurial clarity not the first words one would normally choose for this gargantuan score from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, sustained with unfailing vigilance and concentration. -- The Guardian

Richard Wagner
DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Walther von Stolzing – Marco Jentzsch
Eva – Anna Gabler
Magdalene – Michaela Selinger
David – Topi Lehtipuu
Veit Pogner – Alastair Miles
Sixtus Beckmesser – Johannes Martin Kränzle
Hans Sachs – Gerald Finley
Kunz Vogelgesang – Colin Judson

The Glyndebourne Chorus
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski, conductor

David McVicar, stage director

Recorded live at Glyndebourne, Lewes, July 2011

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German
Running time: 300 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (Blu-ray)

R E V I E W:

WAGNER Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg • Vladimir Jurowski, cond; Anna Gabler ( Eva ); Michaela Selinger ( Magdalene ); Marco Jentzsch ( Walther von Stolzing ); Topi Lehtipuu ( David ); Gerald Finley ( Hans Sachs ); Johannes Martin Kränzle ( Sixtus Beckmesser ); Alastair Miles ( Veit Pogner ); Glyndebourne Festival Ch; London PO • OPUS ARTE OA 1085 D (2 DVDs: 300:00) OA BD7108 (Blu-ray) Live: Glyndebourne 6/2011


John Christie, Glyndebourne’s founder, was Wagner-obsessed and would have dearly loved to present one of the composer’s operas early-on in the Festival’s history. But such an undertaking was not a reasonable possibility in Glyndebourne’s original 300-seat theater. As John Christie’s grandson recounts in one of this Blu-ray’s “extras,” an early Glyndebourne conductor commented “if you put on Wagner, you’ll need to put the audience on the stage and the stage in the auditorium.” Glyndebourne got a new opera house in the 1990s, seating 1,250, and Wagner finally came to East Sussex in 2003 with a production of Tristan und Isolde. This David McVicar-directed Meistersinger represents Glyndebourne’s second Wagner staging, and it’s something special.


Die Meistersinger , at one level, is about intergenerational conflict and being able to cast younger singers as the quartet of lovers is a real plus. (The recent PentaTone Meistersinger on SACD succeeds, in part, because those singers at least sound youthful.) At Glyndebourne, McVicar notes, he could “cast singers that are appropriate to the ages of their characters and are physically convincing.” Marco Jentzsch, the strapping Walther, has got to be 6’3” or 6’4”—a far cry from the all-too-common fireplug Stolzings, whose boots come up most of the way to their protuberant abdomens. If Jentzsch can’t belt out the Prize Song as powerfully as a Ben Heppner or Peter Seifert, he’s fully up to the lyrical requirements of the role and his voice has a pleasant timbre. The Finnish tenor Topi Lehtipuu handles the part of David very effectively, both his character’s palpable horniness and, more critically, the act I exegesis on song writing. Anna Gabler is a complex and passionate Eva, as confused as Nuremberg’s shoemaker about the possibility of a future as Mrs. Hans Sachs. Michaela Selinger, the Magdalena, is perky and vocally appealing.


Alistair Miles portrays a Pogner that is Sach’s equal in intelligence and integrity, despite his fat-cat status; Johannes Martin Kränzle’s Beckmesser executes the requisite physical comedy and manages just the correct amount of pedantry and pride to define the town clerk’s obvious short-comings while leaving him a sympathetic character. Beckmesser, here, is a victim of his own personality failings rather than a fundamentally bad person. Any Meistersinger, of course, depends on its Sachs to keep our interest up for five hours, and Gerald Finley is a superb one. He happens to be the best singer here, but his acting is what makes this production so compelling. Finley’s character, we know from the outset, is thoroughly engaged with the dual goals of achieving artistic progress and promoting Stolzing’s romantic efforts—but is also a very conflicted human being. When the curtain goes up for act III, it’s clear that Sachs has been drinking all night and he kicks some furniture around. He uncovers a portrait of his late wife. And just before Walther enters to compose his song, we see Sachs pick up a pen to write something—presumably a contest song to compete for Eva himself. The Knight comes into the workshop and Sachs backs away from the abyss.


It’s that sort of theatrical detail that makes this production exceptional. The size of the stage and hall is still small by Metropolitan Opera or Covent Garden standards and allows for a high level of intimacy. As McVicar tells us “Everyone on stage is a character and has a story.” Watch the Masters as they congregate in acts I and III, especially the guy with the ear trumpet. That’s “Ulrich Eisslinger,” not exactly a major role—he has one line in the act I roll call. The part is positively savored by Adrian Thomson, who responds to every event on stage with facial expressions and body language that are alone practically worth the price of admission. And look at the Masters’ faces when Walther’s final version of the Prize Song takes an unexpected harmonic turn. These guys—the singers and their characters—are really listening deeply.


McVicar moves the action from the 16th century to the early 19th, the era into which the composer was born. In a second extra feature, Die Meistersinger —An Opera with Baggage, the director reminds us that the 1820s and 1830s were a time before Unification when Germans “could point to their culture as an expression of their national identity.” By considering Meistersinger in the context of this time frame, McVicar doesn’t need to directly address the future commandeering of this work for the vilest of nationalistic purposes. I like any Meistersinger where Beckmesser stays on stage after his humiliation. He’s not the “other”—he’s still part of a community.


The production is sumptuously lit and filmed, in the same league as the Met’s venerable Otto Schenk version—and the meadow scene is a real eyeful. The sound is richly detailed with excellent vocal/orchestral balances. (In multichannel, the “auf den theater” brass fanfares are definitely coming from afar.) Subtitles are offered in English, French, and German. Glyndebourne’s Meistersinger goes straight to the top of the heap among the eight video versions in my collection. It registers here, to use David McVicar’s words, as “a profoundly human, wise, warm, loving work.”


FANFARE: Andrew Quint

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Keith Warner’s iconic production sets the stage for Wagner’s epic tale of family and power. Antonio Pappano conducts an outstanding cast including Nina Stemme, John Lundgren, Sarah Connolly, Emily Magee, Stuart Skelton and Ain Angerin in Keith Warner’s ‘outstanding staging’ (Evening Standard) of Die Walküre. Die Walküre is the second opera in Richard Wagner’s four-opera-cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. It is the most performed work in the cycle, loved and admired for its nuanced and intelligent exploration of complex family entanglements through music of astonishing emotive power. This includes the glorious music for the incestuous lovers Siegmund and Sieglinde, and Wotan’s passionate farewell to his beloved daughter Brünnhilde.

-----

REVIEW:

This performance of Die Walküre came as part of a Ring cycle at the ROH running from September 26 to November 2, 2018. The four operas were generally well received and if I can judge their quality from this one alone I can say I'm certainly not surprised by their positive reception. In the age of opera studio recordings, singers and musicians could do multiple retakes over many days, but now in the era of video, live efforts such as this one are usually culled from just a few performances. The dates given in the album booklet here indicate this one is derived from just two, which is all the more remarkable, suggesting the singers, pit musicians and conductor were truly in their element in this performance and thus likely throughout the entire cycle. But of course, there is another aspect to every opera on video—the production, what you see on stage. So, the issue is, this Die Walküre will have to be an exceedingly strong one in just about every respect to succeed in the marketplace, owing to the plentiful competition, which I'll deal with shortly. Let me start with the singers here.

Nine Stemme is probably the finest soprano to portray Brünnhilde that I've ever encountered on video. She doesn't have a weak or prosaic moment in this opera. John Lundgren as Wotan is also excellent: full-voiced and utterly immersed in his character—becoming Wotan, in fact—he is splendid, coming across as domineering and adamant, cold and vengeful, but struggling still in his attempts to deny all emotion. He is brilliant throughout the opera actually, and like Stemme, divulges nothing even tinged of mediocrity in either his singing or acting skills. Stuart Skelton as Siegmund is also extremely convincing, capturing the essence of his character as well, his singing and dramatic abilities consistently impressive. Emily Magee catches fire in the latter third or so of Act II and continues in the same spirited vein in the last act, really showing total involvement and singing her heart out, perhaps inspired to rival the imposing stage presence of Nina Stemme. Ain Anger as Hunding is more than adequate, as is Sarah Connolly in the role of Fricka. I'm not sure that any recording tops this cast in the competition from the video realm, though there are of course some great performances on older recordings in LP and CD formats.

Antonio Pappano generally employs somewhat brisk tempos and seems to grasp fully the emotional trajectory of each scene in his well-conceived and imaginative phrasing of the score. The ROH Orchestra respond with great spirit in their performance and also strike you as fully connected to this opera's strange but compelling world. There is much flair to their account of the Ride of the Valkyries' music but they also deliver the more subtle moments in the score in the same committed manner.

As for the staging aspects of this Keith Warner production, they are quite effective for the most part, though some Wagner traditionalists will likely object to certain liberties taken in this account. I found Warner's take on this opera generally quite fine though, not a radical rethinking of the story's events and characters. The costuming is a mixture of tattered medieval and casual modern, though Fricka's regal dress is an exception in the former category. The sets typically seem to convey symbolism, often in an inscrutable way.

It must be said that some aspects of this production don't go so well. The Ride of the Valkyries scene to open Act III is a bit awkward in execution, at least in the out of sync choreography of the eight warriors as they wave their horse skeletons in the air and traipse about the stage. Their singing is fine though, and their sense of drama quite good. In the background the wall serves as a screen which shows black and white filmed scenes of a sword battle and horses charging. Though brief, these film clips don't really enhance the happenings on center stage, but seem rather inconsequential instead. The special effects in the opera are mostly okay, not of outstanding quality. Still, while some visual effects aren't the product of some bold new technique, they often succeed quite impressively, like the jets of fire from above and to the side of center stage in the Magic Fire Music scene at the end.

The sound reproduction is excellent, as is the picture clarity and camera work. There are four short bonus features on the second DVD: the first three feature commentary by cast members, conductor Pappano, Keith Warner, the repetiteur and orchestra members; and the fourth contains the cast gallery.

What's my recommendation then in this crowded field? This new Pappano-led effort is truly superb, but so is the recent one by Thielemann. To muddy the waters further, the 2010 Barenboim is another recording I would never want to part with and for that matter, his highly praised earlier recording featured the excellent Harry Kupfer production. Any one of these four would probably do, but I must get to a verdict here. Without much hesitation I would now choose, especially for the singing, this new Die Walküre by Pappano on Opus Arte. As mentioned earlier, Wagner traditionalists might find some aspects of the production objectionable, but the whole package is immensely satisfying. A tremendous performance!

– MusicWeb International (Robert Cummings)

Gotterdammerung ('Twilight of the Gods') is the final opera of Wagner's epic tetralogy "Der Ring des Nibelungen" ('The Ring of the Nibelung') in which his visionary masterpiece reaches it's cataclysmic conclusion. Betrayal and death, murder and remorse, lie at the opera's heart, in a work that draws together every plot element in writing of blazing intensity. As the ring is restored to the Rhinemaidens, the age of the gods ends, with the opera offering the certainty of destruction but the consolation of renewal. Staged by the award-winning director Stefan Herheim, this innovative new production from Deutsche Oper Berlin features a leading international cast conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles. The release includes "Making Of" documentary featuring interviews with Stefan Herheim and Sir Donald Runnicles, and behind the scenes footage.

Wagner's immense imagination reveals itself in the composer's 16-hour Ring cycle, being able to fully captivate worldwide audiences since it's complete performance in 1876 in Bayreuth. Christian Thielemann's conducting of "Velvety sound of unmatched beauty" (The Guardian) leads an extremely sophisticated production, with Tcherniakov's stage that meets the highest technical standards, evolved in ever new, impressive spaces. "Gotterdammerung" is the concluding chapter of Wagner's monumental four-part opus, which he conceived in the light of the revolution of 1848/49 and completed in 1874 after numerous attempts and a long interruption. In many ways, the thematic and musical threads are intertwined in a highly artistic and complex manner. "Tcherniakov, as usual, manages details on a level rarely seen in opera." (The New York Times)

Gotterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods) is the epic fourth and final opera of Wagner’s great Ring cycle, with a plot that depicts the fall of heroes, gods, and the entire world. As ever with the Ring, the joys of love are all too fragile and fleeting, and the drama of Gotterdammerung revolves around dark and unsettling reversals of fortune and illusions of hope that synthesize thrilling and powerful grand opera traditions with Wagner’s revolutionary techniques. Containing all of the Ring’s essential elements, Gotterdammerung’s profoundly satisfying sense of inevitability makes it both a towering climax and a unified summation of the Ring’s abundant variety.

Bel Air Classiques presents Wagner’s mystic masterpiece “Parsifal” in a brilliant staging by Dmitri Tcherniakov in the spectacular Staatsoper Berlin. Wagner’s last completed opera, it was begun in April of 1857 but wasn’t completed until twenty-five years later. It is loosely based on the 13th century epic poem Parzival by Wolfran von Eschenbach, in which an Arthurian knight quests for the Holy Grail. Wagner referred to this work as a “festival play for the consecration of the stage,” rather than an opera. This international cast of outstanding singers lights up the stage, and Daniel Barenboim’s interpretation of the score shimmers in the spotlight.

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

-----

Reviews:

Amfortas is sung and acted with the greatest distinction by Gerald Finley. Denoke is always striking as Kundry but doesn't have quite a large enough voice for the demanding role. The minor roles are well taken. And the orchestra covers itself with glory, tirelessly magnificent for all 270 minutes.

– BBC Music Magazine

This is a well-thought-through production whose ideas don’t fight against the music. In musical terms, too, this is a simply excellent performance. Gurnemanz is a role that René Pape might have been born to sing. Finley is similarly balm to the ears as Amfortas. Denoke seizes every dramatic opportunity which the role gives her.

– MusicWeb International

Richard Wagner
PARSIFAL

Parsifal - Simon O’Neill
Gurnemanz - René Pape
Kundry / Voice from Above - Angela Denoke
Amfortas - Gerald Finley
Klingsor - Willard White
Titurel - Robert Lloyd

Royal Opera Chorus and Orchestra
(chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Antonio Pappano, conductor

Stephen Langridge, stage director
Alison Chitty, set and costume designer
Paul Pyant, lighting designer
Dan O’Neill, choreographer

Recorded live at the Royal Opera House, February 2014

Bonus:
- Interviews with Antonio Pappano and Simon O’Neill
- Cast gallery

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Japanese, Korean
Running time: 270 mins (opera) + 25 mins (bonus)
No. of Discs: 2 (Blu-ray)

Also available on CD

Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) is one of the most remarkable achievements in all music, and Siegfried, the third in the cycle, contains some of the greatest moments in Wagner’s entire output. Wagner conceived Siegfried as a heroic ‘man of the future,’ and his fantastical tale is one in which the human dramas of treachery and violent struggles for power become magnified in a world of gods, dragons and magic. The previous opera in this cycle, Die Walkure, was acclaimed in The Guardian as “thrillingly vivid… easily maintains the high standard and promise of Das Rheingold.” (Naxos NBD0049).

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

A brand new production of ‘Tannhäuser’ from the Staatsoper Berlin, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, staged and choreographed by Sasha Waltz, who has brought to the stage this Romantic Wagner opera with a star cast of some of today's best Wagnerian singers: Peter Seiffert in the title role, Réne Pape as Landgraf and Peter Mattei as Wolfram, Ann Petersen sings Elisabeth and Marina Prudenskaya is Venus.

HD recording: Staatsoper im Schiller Theater, Berlin – 04/2014
BLURAY Running time: 192 min.
Booklet: French / English / German, Subtitles: French / English / German
16/9, Full HD, Audio:PCM 2.0, DTS HD Master Audio

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Richard Wagner’s Tannhauser, a tale of the struggle between spiritual and profane love, and of redemption through love, is given a radical visual update in Sebastian Baumgarten’s controversial Bayreuth production. • Joep van Lieshout’s giant installation ‘The Technocrat’ dominates the stage, its industrial interior suggesting that Tannhäuser is in fact one big experiment. • Torsten Kerl interprets the title role, with Camilla Nylund in the role of Elisabeth. • ‘‘Camilla Nylund’s Elisabeth and Kwangchul Youn’s Landgraf deservedly received the most applause at the curtain calls.’’ (Bachtrack)

Richard Wagner
TANNHÄUSER

Hermann / Landgrave of Thuringia - Kwangchul Youn
Tannhäuser - Torsten Kerl
Wolfram von Eschenbach - Markus Eiche
Walther von der Vogelweide - Lothar Odinius
Biterolf - Thomas Jesatko
Heinrich der Schreiber - Stefan Heibach
Reinmar von Zweter - Rainer Zaun
Elisabeth / The Landgrave’s niece - Camilla Nylund
Venus - Michelle Breedt
A Young Shepherd - Katja Stuber

Bayreuth Festival Chorus and Orchestra
(chorus master: Eberhard Friedrich)
Axel Kober, conductor

Sebastian Baumgarten, stage director
Joep van Lieshout, set designer
Nina von Mechow, costume designer
Franck Evin, lighting designer

Recorded live at the Bayreuth Festival, July 2014

Bonus:
- Interviews with Sebastian Baumgarten, Axel Kober, Eberhard Friedrich, Torsten Kerl and Camilla Nylund
- Short films
- Cast gallery

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Korean
Running time: 252 mins (opera) + 30 mins (bonus)
No. of Discs: 2 (BD 50)

Note: This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

br />
Also available on standard DVD

The Philharmonics:
Tibor Ková? first violin, Shkëlzen Doli second violin, Thilo Fechner viola, Stephan Koncz cello, Ödön Rácz double bass, Daniel Ottensamer clarinet, František Jánoška piano

Guests: Walter Auer flute, Christoph Traxler harmonium

The Philharmonics, the ensemble founded by members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, fill the Café Sperl with some of the most authentically Viennese sounds imaginable – the Strauss waltzes that Schoenberg, Berg and Webern arranged and performed in May 1921 to raise funds for their pioneering “Society for Private Musical Performances”. This is music the players have in their blood, and they maintain the echt atmosphere with Godowsky’s tribute to the city, “Alt-Wien” and a clutch of Kreisler gems, rounding the programme off with a new piece by the ensemble’s leader Tibor Ková?, based on traditional Jewish melodies and Mahler themes, “Yiddische Mame”.

Recorded live at Café Sperl in Vienna, 9 March 2011

BONUS: How Schoenberg came to arrange waltzes by Strauss

Picture format: 1080i Full-HD
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles (Bonus): English, French
Running time: 64 mins (concert) + 10 mins (bonus)
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 25)

R E V I E W:



J. STRAUSS II Emperor Waltz. Roses from the South. A Night in Venice: Lagunenwalzer. Wine, Women, and Song. The Gypsy Baron: Treasure Waltz. KREISLER Marche miniature viennoise. Schön Rosmarin. Caprice viennois. KOVÁC Yiddische Mame. GODOWSKY Alt-Wien • The Philharmonics • ACCENTUS ACC 10228 (Blu-ray: 64:20) Live: Vienna 3/9/2011

In 1921, as a fund-raiser for the Society for Private Musical Performances, Schoenberg and his two most famous disciples arranged four Strauss waltzes for piano, harmonium, and string quartet. Four years later, Schoenberg returned to the source, adapting the Emperor Waltz for a similar ensemble, with the harmonium replaced by flute and clarinet. (Richard Burke, in Fanfare 22:4, suggests that it was “supposedly for use as an encore” after Pierrot Lunaire .) I’d love to have been at the first performance of the original four, featuring Berg on harmonium, Schoenberg on second violin, and Webern on cello (not to mention Eduard Steuermann on piano and Rodolf Kolisch on first violin), but removed from that star-studded context, the arrangements don’t hold up especially well. In his review of a recording featuring the Berlin String Quartet and friends (one that, like many forays into this repertoire, left out the low-inspiration Lagunenwalzer ), James H. North insisted that the “awkward arrangements” were “of little interest.” And while Richard Burke found more to admire, I can’t agree with him that the distinctive personalities of the three arrangers can be heard in these workaday adaptations. Certainly, there’s nothing here to match the quirkiness of Webern’s take on the six-voice Ricerar from The Musical Offering —nor the full-throated romanticism surging through Schoenberg’s arrangements of Bach’s organ music or Brahms First Piano Quartet. Nor, despite the Second Vienna School’s supposed affection for the Waltz King, is there anything here as delectable as the fantasies and transcriptions penned by such turn-of-the-century piano virtuosos as Godowsky, Rosenthal, and Rachmaninoff.

Still, as background music, this repertoire has its virtues—and this Blu-ray, featuring The Philharmonics (an ensemble made up of members of the Vienna Philharmonic), treats it precisely in that manner, offering up whipped-cream live performances from Vienna’s Café Sperl, with an audience numbering a dozen or so people, most of whom are more involved in their books, magazines, gossip, and flirtations than in the music. Certainly, this low-key approach makes more sense than the cleaner, more modernist (but also stiffer) manner favored by the members of the Boston Symphony on what is probably the most familiar recording of this material (see 26:2).

The Philharmonics interleave the Strauss waltzes with other popular Viennese confections—as well as first violinist Tibor Ková?’s medley that mixes Mahler with familiar Jewish songs. They’re all played with the same congenial spirit. As for the production: The notes are confusing—especially with respect to responsibility for the Kreisler and Godowsky arrangements; the bonus track, a discussion by Dr. Christian Meyer, director of the Schoenberg Center, is illuminating, but completely disorganized; sound and video are clean, although you’re apt to wonder why you’d want to watch an event that even the original audience wasn’t paying much visual attention to. Still, if you’ve got a Blu-ray player in the right part of your house, this is a fine accompaniment to your Sunday brunch.

FANFARE: Peter J. Rabinowitz