Wagner: Tannhauser / Seiffert, Eiche, Vas, Weigle, Gran Teatre Del Liceu
C Major Entertainment
Blu-Ray
$45.99Mar 27, 2012
Tannhäuser Richard Wagner Gran Teatre del Liceu 2008
Director: Sebastian Weigle Orchestra: Simfonica del Gran Teatre del Liceu Tannhäuser: Peter Seiffert Elizabeth: Petra Maria Schnitzer Wolfram: Markus Eiche Venus: Béatrice Uria-Monzon Hermann: Günther Groissböck Walther : Vicente Ombuena Biterolf: Lauri Vasar Heinrich: FranciscoVas Reinmar: Johann Tilli
Aspect Ratio: 16:9, 1080i Format: PCM Stereo, DTS HD 5.1 Running time: 201 mins No. of Discs: 1
“This set is essential” concluded Gramophone of the Ring cycle when this 2008 production was issued complete. Christian Thielemann leads a performance of masterful pacing and burning conviction that features detailed interpretations from many of today’s most experienced interpreters of their complex and glorious roles.
The composer's great-granddaughter was keen to stage Cord Garben's abridged version of the cycle at the Teatro Colin in Buenos Aires, but in the event things turned out rather differently. The present documentary provides a thrilling and visually memorable account of the long journey taken by this version from it's inception to the first night.
With it's plot derived from Arthurian legend, Tristan und Isolde is considered by many to be the most harmonically daring and overtly sensual of the composer's operas. From the famous opening 'Tristan chord' of the Prelude, repeated at key points in the drama, to it's over-powering harmonic resolution at the end of the Liebestod (Love-Death), the opera is remarkable for the hypnotic power, physical longing and intense human emotion sustained over more than three years.
Comprising four separate operas, Wagner's visionary Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) took 25 years to complete. Centred around a ring of power and the attempts of various people to acquire it, the Ring cycle explores the relationship between love and earthly power and the themes of yearning and loss, all within a setting of medieval legend. The prologue Das Rheingold deals with the theft and subsequent surrender of the ring forged from the Rhinegold by the Nibelung dwarf Alberich.
Rachmaninov: Piano Concertos 1-4, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini / Luisi, De La Salle, Philharmonia Zurich
Accentus Music
CD
$31.99Feb 24, 2015
The Zurich Opera Orchestra recently re-branded itself as the Zurich Philharmonia. Along with its relaunch it launched its own CD label. With an energized, undistracted Fabio Luisi at the helm, this is paying big dividends in this CD of popular Wagner overtures. The sensual, calm flow of the Rienzi Overture is exemplary for his Wagner: Luisi unfolds the music with a resting, slow magnificence before rolling out the full brunt of this powerful overture. The whole two-CD album continues in this vein. Indeed, this is now my favorite disc of orchestral Wagner!
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).
Wagner: Piano Sonatas, Lieder / Koch, Hinterdobler, Mauro
CPO
CD
$18.99Aug 27, 2013
This year marks the 200th anniversary of Richard Wagner’s birth. This CD clearly shows Wagner’s ambition to vie with Beethoven, manifesting the inclination towards big and boundless writing. Tobias Koch, one of the most versatile keyboard instrumentalists of his generation, reproduces Wagner’s original sound in brilliant fashion.
Wagner: Overtures & Preludes / Rosbaud, Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra
SWR
CD
$13.99May 12, 2017
Hans Rosbaud was the chief conductor of the Southwest Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1948 until his death in 1962. He transformed the orchestra, later renamed as the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg, into a leading European ensemble. His interests lay in both contemporary music and the classical and romantic symphonic repertoire. This new series from the SWR Classic label presents largely unpublished recordings by Rosbaud of classical and romantic repertoire, starting with overtures by Richard Wagner.
Inspired by his impressive descriptions, ensemble feuervogel follows Coryat on his voyage of discovery through the alleyways, squares, and canals of the Serenissima: from the magnificent St Mark's Basilica to the noble palazzi of the Venetian aristocracy and the elegant courts where music, dance, and courtly art played a central role. The concert programme Observations of Venice brings ornate diminutions and madrigals into dialogue with dance music, ricercars, and canzonas. In this way, ensemble feuervogel receives the music of the Venetian cinquecento, which Coryat wrote was "so beautiful that I would willingly walk a hundred miles at any time to hear the like of it."
Great vocal masterpieces are given a new voice in a bold and poetic programme by Spanish saxophonist Carlos Giménez, who showcases the instrument's profoundly lyrical side, capable of breathing, sighing and singing with startling emotional immediacy. Together with pianist José Alberto del Cerro, the songful qualities, richness of colours and genuine human expressivity of works by Mompou, Rachmaninoff, Montsalvatge, Wagner and Obradors are transformed into luminous "songs without words," revealing the saxophone's hidden vocal soul.
Arvids Jansons (1914-1984) was born in Liepaja on Latvia's west coast. He studied violin from 1929 until 1935 at the Conservatory of Liepaja, then composition and conducting (under Leo Blech) at the Conservatory of Riga from 1940 until 1944 while working as a violinist at Riga Opera. In 1944 he was appointed conductor of Riga Opera, then of the Latvian Radio Orchestra (1947-1952). In 1952 he was appointed associate conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic under Yevgeny Mravinsky and toured frequently with them, as well as with other Russian orchestras, to the UK and to the Continent from 1970 onwards. Jansons became principal guest conductor of Manchester's Hallé Orchestra in 1965 at the personal invitation of Sir John Barbirolli, who knew of Jansons as an expert orchestral conductor but a genius in the rehearsal studio. It was in Manchester that Jansons collapsed and died from a heart attack in 1984 while conducting a concert with the Hallé. Arvids was the father of Mariss Jansons (1943-2019).
The Beecham Collection - Berlioz & Wagner: Orchestral Excerp
SOMM Recordings
CD
$20.99Jun 19, 2026
SOMM Recordings continues it's much-admired and long-running series The Beecham Collection with it's 35th release of live recordings by Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The recording highlights the operatic side of Beecham with orchestral excerpts from Les Troyens and La Damnation de Faust by Hector Berlioz, and Tannhäuser, Parsifal, Götterdämmerung, and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Richard Wagner. Producer and audio engineer Lani Spahr, whose work for SOMM on Elgar from the Archives has been described by Gramophone Magazine as "astounding" and "revelatory," is once again responsible for the audio restoration on this release. The professional debut of Sir Thomas Beecham, Bart., C.H. took place on 6 December 1899 in St Helen's Town Hall when he was twenty years old. He conducted the Hungarian March from La Damnation de Faust by Berlioz with the Hallé Orchestra, and the music of Berlioz was to become one of the cornerstones of his repertoire for the next six decades. This present recording of the Hungarian March is a gloriously uninhibited performance that brought the house down at the end of a 1955 concert at the Royal Festival Hall. That concert also included two excerpts from Les Troyens by Berlioz. The Prelude to The Trojans at Carthage is followed by The Royal Hunt and Storm, with the Oxford Bach Choir providing the brief choral contribution from Nymphs, Sylvans, and Fauns. These performances are remarkable for their atmospheric poetry in the slower sections and the rampaging energy in the faster music. During the same year as his professional debut, a young Beecham made his pilgrimage to Bayreuth, and he became an enthusiastic, instinctual conductor of Wagner's music. The renowned music critic Neville Cardus once noted that, while German conductors tended to take a reflective and philosophical approach in interpreting Wagner, Sir Thomas concentrated on the dramatic and picturesque parts of the music. This concentration on colour and drama makes his conducting of the orchestral extracts included on this release both satisfying and full of character. These four orchestral excerpts were recorded at the Royal Festival Hall on 17 December 1958. The concert opened with the Overture and Venusberg Music from Tannhäuser; for decades one of Beecham's warhorses as a concert opener. Orchestral excerpts from Parsifal appeared regularly on Beecham's concert programmes, and this 1958 concert featured the Good Friday Music. Beecham conducted a number of Ring cycles during his career, and his affinity with the music shines through in this recording of Siegfried's Rhine Journey from Götterdämmerung. This release closes with the Prelude to Act One of Die Meistersinger, about which the review in the Daily Telegraph said, "the thickly overlaid texture of the overture can seldom have been given with such golden clarity."
Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen / van Zweden, Hong Kong Philharmonic
Naxos
CD
$74.99Nov 30, 2018
Wagner’s visionary Ring of the Nibelung was first performed as a cycle of four operas in 1876. Its mythic plot examines the relationship between love and earthly power through the agency of a ring which confers ultimate power on its bearer.
One of the most sustained and remarkable achievements in all of music, the tetralogy is performed by an all-star cast, conducted by the new music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Jaap van Zweden, in performances that have been critically acclaimed worldwide for their “thrilling sense of drama.” (The Sunday Times, London)
Past praise of previously released volumes included in this set:
Das Rheingold
Van Zweden’s approach is closest in memory to Herbert von Karajan’s–intimate and chamber-like. 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.
– ClassicsToday.com
Die Walküre
This is a Walküre that reveals its treasures slowly; it’s a warm, intimate reading. The Wälsungs are stunning. Stuart Skelton's tone is big and clean, wobble-free. And his cries of “Wälse” in Act 1 have to be heard to be believed. Heidi Melton as Sieglinde is wonderfully expressive. The listener hangs on every perfectly pronounced, clear word she and Skelton sing, and thanks to Zweden, who leads their interactions as if the opera were bel canto, we feel for them. Interrupting their budding love is Falk Struckmann, surprisingly (he’s a baritone, not a bass). He is a grand, scary Hunding.
– ClassicsToday.com
Wagner: Siegfried
Van Zweden's marvelously-rehearsed orchestra play with accuracy, brilliance, and color. I commented on the beauty and sadness of the Walküre performance, and here, added to those two qualities is, by the third act, passion.
Simon O’Neill may not be the most intuitive Siegfried on disc, but he’s among the brightest-toned and most solid, showing no flatting even at the end of his bout with Brünnhilde. Heidi Melton is an excellent Brünnhilde and a marvelous singer/actress, using her half hour to transform with clarity. Everyone proves their mettle, taste, and polish here, and I suspect there will be few who are disappointed.
– ClassicsToday.com
Wagner: Götterdämmerung
This is a grand finale to the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s Ring Cycle. Both Walküre and Siegfried were marvelously conceived, excellent concert performances, each with a minor flaw or two: recording balances out of whack and unfocused mid-voice for Brünnhilde in Walküre; recording too recessed in Siegfried; lack of character delineation in the Wanderer/Mime scene in Act 1 of Siegfried. I was quite taken by the storytelling in both, finding beauty, sadness, and in the Siegfried finale, passion. This set, recorded at two concert performances (and, I suspect, a patch-up session or two—there is NO applause or audience reaction anywhere), is, in one word, majestic, which is a fitting end to the Cycle.
The Walhall Eternity label is for the first time releasing in it's entirety the legendary 1959 Covent Garden Ring cycle of Richard Wagner conducted by Franz Konwitschny, performances that feature the finest Wagnerian voices of the 1950's, including Wolfgang Windgassen, Hans Hotter, Astrid Varnay, Ramon Vinay, Amy Shuard (student of Eva Turner and Covent Garden regular), Gottlob Frick and more. Franz Konwitschny's gripping interpretations lie comfortably between those of Fürtwängler's commanding heights supremacy and Solti's fire and spontaneity. Re-mastered 24bit/96kHz.
![Wagner: Siegfried / Zweden, Hong Kong Philharmonic [Blu-ray Audio]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3817013_ade3186b-c94f-46b4-bcba-10d651d06e89.jpg?v=1788218310&width=800)
![Wagner: Siegfried / Zweden, Hong Kong Philharmonic [Blu-ray Audio]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/61HcvX24TSL.jpg?v=1788218310&width=800)
![Wagner: Siegfried / Zweden, Hong Kong Philharmonic [Blu-ray Audio]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3817013_ade3186b-c94f-46b4-bcba-10d651d06e89.jpg?v=1788218310&width=400)
![Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer, WWV 63 [Recorded 1956]](http://arkivmusic.com/cdn/shop/files/3814143.jpg?v=1786704977&width=400)