While I was thoroughly enjoying myself listening to this disc an analogy sprang to mind regarding 19 ^th Century war-horse piano transcriptions. It struck me that – from a 'modern' perspective – they are rather like a great steam locomotive, totally redundant and outmoded but actually rather inspiring and a triumph of engineering!
 
I have written before that I have an enduring pleasure in hearing a good transcription of something utterly preposterous ... and what could be more preposterous than transcribing Wagner’s Ring for solo piano? The key to raising both the transcription and indeed the performance of it hangs on several far less absurd considerations. These are as follows. How well does the transcriber retain the essence of the work in question? How successfully does the transcriber satisfy the twin musical imperatives of writing a work pleasing as both a virtuoso piano piece and as ‘simple’ music? Lastly, how well is the performer able to surmount the vast technical hurdles implied by the genre whilst producing a performance of real musical value? The reason for my pleasure in this disc is that on every count I would have to say: very well indeed.
 
To start with the composer/transcriber; August Stradal was yet another of those acolytes of Liszt who seem to have spent a good part of their creative careers trying to out-arrange their master. One can imagine an unspoken conflict between Liszt’s many disciples each trying desperately to produce piano music of ever greater complexity and virtuosity. Along the way Stradal had Bruckner as a teacher and in later life provided important biographical information on both those masters. He also transcribed Bruckner’s Symphonies 1-2 and 5-8 for piano … now there’s a project for Toccata to consider! For those interested the Bruckner transcriptions as well as the 2 Liszt Symphonies, Brandenburg No.3 and other works too can be viewed and downloaded from the IMSLP website – unfortunately none of the works recorded here can be so viewed.
 
I quite enjoy playing a little game when listening to transcriptions such as this – it’s called “count the imaginary fingers”. The closer you get to twenty the better. Pianist Juan Guillermo Vizcarra makes a staggeringly powerful case for these transcriptions and he is no mean interpreter of Wagner either. The six excerpts from the Ring are grouped sensibly together in chronological order. Hence the disc opens with three selections from Die Walküre. The first two are rather dwarfed by an extended transcription of its closing pages. Siegmund’s Love-song comes first and shows Stradal’s skill at retaining the original voicing of the opera with the hero ‘singing’ in the middle register of the keyboard and the ‘orchestra’ fully represented above and below. Vizcarra is especially skilled at layering the dynamics within these complex textures ensuring that the ear is guided to primary and secondary material. He is a very dynamic player – his performance had me thinking back to the days of LPs and Michael Ponti’s trail-blazing discs on Vox-Turnabout of various Opera paraphrases. Occasionally I did wonder if Vizcarra was overly-muscular which, allied to a quite close and dynamic recording, does risk ‘virtuosity-awareness-fatigue-syndrome’. Conversely, this is music that should overwhelm one in whatever format it is performed. Vizcarra goes on to prove that he is by no means ‘just’ a virtuoso. Indeed I found his pacing of the seventeen minute selection from the end of Die Walküre very impressive. Likewise the single excerpt from Siegfried – Forest Murmurs – is beautifully paced. I say this even if just occasionally the leading melodic line feels a fraction heavy in comparison to the accompanying material but I do feel rather mean-spirited mentioning this.
 
Malcolm MacDonald in his predictably fascinating and insightful liner cites the two Götterdämmerung excerpts as representing the apogee of Stradal’s art with regard to Wagner. Certainly the sheer complexity of textures that he is able to retain from the original version of Siegfried’s Rhine Journey is astonishing. Again I find Vizcarra’s pacing of the closing pages which then lead with seamless skill into Siegfried’s Funeral March wholly convincing. Given that so much of the orchestral texture in this extraordinarily valedictory passage is built on long-held chords building crescendi this is the one time a piano struggles to maintain the illusion of the original. This is for the simple and obvious fact that a piano cannot play a crescendo without repeating a note or chord. That aside Vizcarra is a very impressive interpreter and Stradal’s transcription builds to a remarkably powerful climax replete with little sky-bursts of keyboard flurries and virtuoso gestures.
 
Sensibly, the final third of the disc is devoted to a far less rhetorical and grandly dramatic transcription of the five Wesendonck Lieder. These do already exist in the original version for piano and voice. MacDonald explains that Stradal stays essentially faithful to Wagner’s original except in two respects; he changes the order of the songs and moves the vocal line into the middle register again whilst at the same time moving Wagner’s right-hand piano part up the octave. This has the twin effect of making that element of the accompaniment sound immediately more ‘brilliant’ whilst keeping the now inner vocal line clear of conflicting part-writing. Vizcarra is beautifully poetic throughout the cycle although again I occasionally wondered if he strove too hard to give the inner/vocal line prominence. Especially since the placing of this line in a tenor/baritone register changes the feel quite significantly from their mezzo-soprano original. Again this seems like minor carping when one has been given the opportunity to hear such startlingly effective transcriptions in such convincing performances.
 
Toccata Classics is one of my favourite labels with the questing and quirky nature of the repertoire they offer very much a reflection on the tastes and passions their founder and executive producer Martin Anderson. This disc is another excellent example of his sure-fire sense of rare and unknown music well worth restoring and exploring. More Wagner please but a set of the Bruckner transcriptions really would be something.
 
-- Nick Barnard, MusicWeb International

This collection presents the under-rated tenor Siegfried Jerusalem in a program of favorite arias: Wagner, Weber, Mozart and Weinberger as well as selections by Smetana, Meyerbeer and Tchaikovsky, all sung in German. Jerusalem, the tenor of choice in Wagnerian repertoire in the late 70s and 80s, is always an intense performer on stage, but under-recorded in some of his key roles. There is steel in his voice and, of course, this is necessary in much of Wagner, but there is also a need for lyricism and Jerusalem sings with an almost italianate elegance. The arias from 'Lohengrin' achieve this elegance, while the "Prize Song" from 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg' is suitably ecstatic.
Jerusalem shines in non-Wagnerian works, too. His Tamino from Mozart's 'Die Zauberflöte' is just right, and "Dies Bildnis is bezaubernd schön" is full of fresh, youthful vigor. His rendition of Lensky's aria from Tchaikovsky's 'Eugene Onegin' is heartbreaking and well-characterized--a high point of the disc. Duets from Weinberger's 'Schwanda, der Dudelsackpfeifer' with Hermann Prey and the late, magnificent Lucia Popp are a real treat. If you want to discover a great artist in an interesting program, you should grab this one.

Superlative Wagnerian singing - Toscanini keeps the music swiftly and taut, while giving the soloists plenty of room for the most telling, eloquent turns of phrase.

The Walküre Act I excerpt was not published until several years after Toscanini's death, when it was partnered by Götterdämmerung excerpts taken from the same 1941 concert. It would have made this disc still more attractive if both had been included, but as it is we have here a glorious example of superlative Wagnerian singing. Melchior was 51 years old at the time of the broadcast, although you would never guess this from his marvellously youthful, ardent tones, and Traubel was in superb form, too. Toscanini moves the music on quite swiftly and the orchestral phrasing is fairly taut, but neither soloist seems under the slightest pressure, and each has plenty of room for the most telling, eloquent turns of phrase. The balance favours the singers, and I rather fancy that background noise has been suppressed a little too much, but the sound is not at all bad for its date.

I liked the Siegfried Idyll performance very much, for it has an attractive sense of repose and gentle affection, with some very poetic contributions from the solo woodwind. The sound here is pretty good, as it is in the Tristan Prelude and Liebestod, which are played in a lean, clean fashion, beautifully balanced, but rather lacking in passion and atmosphere. There is a slightly cramped sound in the Ride of the Valkyries, but better that it should be here than in the most important items. A most desirable disc, which offers many rewards.

-- A. S., Gramophone [12/1991]

From the private collection of the late, great dramatic soprano Martha Mödl comes this 1955 live broadcast recording of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre, captured in excellent MONO sound and differing from the Testament label Die Walküre release of the same year’s performance with the same conductor (Joseph Keilberth) in both its sound (stereo) and, ever so slightly, in cast, first and foremost in the case of Ms. Mödl as Brünnhilde, but both, of course, first-rate dream casts. The other glorious, featured voices from this production include Astrid Varnay, Ramon Vinay, Josef Greindl and Hans Hotter.

"Much the most valuable items here are the two duets with Flagstad as they haven't been available in Britain for years or not at all. Besides, in the Lohengrin bridal-chamber scene Melchior is almost at the peak of his form, with a fine integration of line and tone, and Flagstad sings with rapt, glowing tone. Though this version hasn't quite the intimacy and tenderness of Melchior's earlier Parlophone version with Bettendorf (reissued in a two-CD Danacord set), it needs to be heard by budding Wagnerians wanting to know what we miss in Wagner singing today. The Tristan duet, again, finds Flagstad singing freshly and ecstatically... As it happens, the other Lohengrin items also find Melchior near his best, suggesting how affecting he must have been in the title-role, one of his favourite parts. Parsifal's ''Nur eine waffe taugt'' and Siegfried's second song at the forge are better heard in earlier versions.

The plums of the non-Wagner items are the Schumann duets with Lehmann—the old partners sing these gemutlich items with delightful spontaneity. One forgets and forgives the unauthenticity of the orchestral accompaniments in the enjoyment given by the exuberant singing. None of the solo songs is remarkable, though it's fun to hear Melchior's unadorned, endearing account of the old ballad, Homing, a previously unissued item."

-- Alan Blyth, Gramophone [10/1990]