This is not to be confused with the (rightly) famous Philips recording with almost the same cast from a year later, also from Bayreuth. I find this performance somewhat more compelling–it has an energy that the ’62 does not: rarely have I heard the choral moments sound so passionate, whether in outrage or prayer, and I’ve always thought that this opera, more than any other of Wagner’s, needs all the energy it can get. In addition, Grace Bumbry, in her Bayreuth debut (at the moment when the color barrier was lifted) is even better here, singing with a wild security and insinuation that ravishes the ear and, yes, Tannhäuser’s soul. She’s an intensely interesting Venus, sneaky, believable, and somewhat terrifying.

Wolfgang Windgassen is a bit better as well after a really bad off-key start; the voice seems darker than the following year. And his Rome Narrative is riveting, pathetic, and a true tour de force–and he has plenty of voice left, even so late in the evening. His operatic voyage from entranced to rueful to loving to crazed and then to more crazed is shatteringly portrayed.

Victoria de los Angeles preceded Anja Silja as Elisabeth, and she is in her full glory here. Nobody sounds like de los Angeles; arguments were made at one time that her Carmen sounded as if she had just come from a convent–but could that be any more perfect for Elisabeth? Her tonal purity is ideal for “Dich teure Halle” and the last-act prayer, and she lacks only the last smidge of desperation and grandeur for her supplications near the end of Act 2. But what a sound–so gentle and loving, so unadulterated! The other cast difference is the inclusion of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Wolfram. Again, can anyone sing or feel this music better? The empathy, the dignity, the gorgeous tone are all unique.

Josef Greindl, who seems to have sung every performance of everything throughout the 1960s, is a gruff Landgraf who nonetheless is fair and loving. And popping up from ensembles and offering the occasional solo is Gerhard Stolze, singing with an instantly recognizable timbre as Walther, and happily sounding nothing like either Mime or Herod. The rest are superb. Wolfgang Sawallich’s contribution needs no vote from me; this is his opera, brilliantly formed. The hybrid edition used may trouble some listeners: It’s essentially the 1845 Dresden, but with the 1861 Venusberg music. It doesn’t bother me a bit. The sound, by the way, is excellent mono.

My first choice for this opera remains Solti’s for Helga Dernesch’s Elisabeth and Christa Ludwig’s Venus, as well as René Kollo’s youthful Tannhäuser, not to mention the recording itself and Solti’s passion. But this one, at half the price, is very tempting.

-- Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

This new release is a live opera performance, recorded at the Bologna Teatro on November 28, 1961. Oliviero De Fabritiis conducts this outstanding performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Ballo in maschera. This performance features Leyla Gencer, Carlo Bergonzi, and Mario Zanasi.

Featuring a front-line cast (Rysanek, Frick, Suthaus, Hotter, Nilsson, etc...) that sends Wagner aficionados into states of reverie at the prospect of listening once again to the authoritative, superlative singing casts one could assemble in the 1950's, this amazing performance of the second opera in the "Nibelungen" tetralogy also proves that conductor Herbert von Karajan live was, like the singers, in a class of his own in the 1950's as well. His few surviving Wagner recordings from this period, like this La Scala 1958 Die Wälkure, are a must for every Wagner connoisseur.

Commissioned in 1885 by Great Britain, Anton Dvorak’s The Spectre’s Bride had huge success immediately upon its premiere. The story is of a girl whose dead lover returns to lead her from her home, forcing her to leave behind her prayer book, rosary, and cross. When she is led to his open grave, she flees and is eventually saved by some churchgoers. At the premiere, Dvorak conducted a 400-voice choir and an orchestra consisting of 150 musicians. Many performances across Europe and in the United States followed, cementing Dvorak’s prominence and popularity across the English-speaking world. Dvorak himself wrote: “I just cannot tell you how much these British honor and like me! Everywhere, they are writing and talking about me, saying I am the lion of this year’s musical season in London.” Here the work is performed by the Wiener Singakademie and the Orf Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Cornelius Meister.

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Simona Šaturová is pure and innocent as the girl but thrills when she throttles up. Pavol Breslik is smooth and eager as her ghostly spouse, Adam Plachetka sage-like as the narrator. A nice little discovery.

– Gramophone

There could be the dramatic skeleton of an opera lurking beneath the cantata veneer of The Spectre’s Bride, a work based on a poem about a young girl who is abducted by a ghost she believes to be the spirit of her lover. There are shapely solo contributions from the ORF orchestra, and certainly some very fine expressive singing from soprano Simona Šaturová as the girl and tenor Pavol Breslik as the spectre.

– Guardian (UK)

If you fancy a set of the Beethoven piano concertos that’s suitable for listening to at a single sitting, then look no further. The ingredients are ideal for the job: abundant energy; bold, clear-sighted interpretation; brilliant though intelligently deployed pianism; poetic handling of the various slow movements; vital conducting and orchestral playing that fits the ‘chamber orchestra’ template like a glove. Vladar’s conducting is again excellent but it’s his playing and conducting that really makes the grade. The sound is very realistic, though be warned that the piano is very much upfront. An exceptional set.

– Gramophone

The compilation of works on this release is intended to provide a reasonably comprehensive view of the unaccompanied sacred choral music of the Romantic era while confining itself to German-language composers from a wide variety of backgrounds and disciplines. The chronological order of the composers and the consideration of a number of central works aims to show the interrelationships of the choral music scene over a period lasting more than a century. The young singers of the Jugendkonzertchor (the youth choir of the Dortmund Choral Academy) engage in intensive rehearsal work and supplementary voice training, their principal focus being the unaccompanied choral music of all periods. The ensemble’s broad repertoire also encompasses oratorio and choral symphonic works and popular music for choir. The Ruhrnachrichten newspaper praises the “perfectly homogenous overall sound and the admirably well trained soloists” of the jugendkonzertchor, who “fill the space around them with a power of their fresh young voices” to create a “luxury sound” : this is a choir of which “great things can be expected in the coming years.”