In that same year - the last before the opening of the new "Great" Festspielhaus - Leonard Bernstein came as a guest with the New York Philharmonic, of which he was chief conductor. Thus one of the most impressive musical personalities of the age arrived together with one of the American orchestras richest in tradition. Bernstein's own work The Age of Anxiety, his Second Symphony for Piano and Orchestra (with Seymour Lipkin as piano soloist, negotiating agilely a musical language that ranged from Romanticism to jazz), impressed the public as much as did Dmitri Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, in which Bernstein realized brilliantly its grandiose climaxes and plumbed its musical depths.

On their newest release, the Latvian Skride sisters present yet more composers from their extended Baltic homeland region. The uniting thread of the works on this album is "finding one's own sound", something which each of the featured composers first had to find, and an element that the sisters effortlessly achieve as performers. All four composers on this recording share a close link with the violin, and all four had an ambivalent relationship with the German and were also all friends. The fact that all composers share a very conscious musicological relationship to their music, which brings out their "own sound" in their works, proves to be highly rewarding, both for an unsentimental musicality and for the performers' flawless, nuanced technique on the piano and violin, as well as for their open-minded listeners.

Two of Beethoven's most beautiful melodies in a new guise: the Violin Romances are played here for the first time in the atmospheric version for cello - sung by a male voice, as it were.

If you thought Mozart's Salzburg serenades were big works, then check out this extravaganza in nine movements, lasting just about an hour. Composed in 1764 and scored for everything but the kitchen sink, the work includes an opening march, two minuets, and major concerto movements for solo clarinet and solo trombone (yes, I did say trombone). Both are often performed separately. Michael Haydn's proto-classical style is, as you might expect, graceful, tuneful, and easy on the ear, and if you are familiar with any of the other releases from Klöcker and his Prague forces, then you know that you can expect lively, elegant music-making (and some terrific clarinet playing). This piece is entirely light and unassuming--entertaining when you want to pay attention, yet unobtrusive if you don't. Even the two marches aren't very militant or rhythmically sharp-edged, but if you're looking for a very pleasant hour of dinner-time music, beautifully recorded, Michael Haydn certainly gets the job done.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Baiba Skride is not just one of the most sought-after artists when it comes to finding a soloist for one of the great violin concertos. She is also much in demand for chamber music. This makes her ideal for her new recording, her first on the ORFEO label, devoted to the work of Johannes Brahms. It is a highly promising start to our collaboration with this First-Prize winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 2001. Besides Brahms's Violin Concerto, she here offers his Hungarian Dances in the version for violin and piano made by Joseph Joachim. The long-standing musical partnership of Brahms and Joachim is reflected doubly here, for Joachim was also the dedicatee of the Concerto. Baiba Skride's Brahms interpretations are themselves characterized by happy musical constellations. In Sakari Oramo she has a conductor who is himself a violinist and who offers the appropriate momentum with the Royal Philharmonic in Stockholm. One clearly hears the energy and vigour with which every instrumental grouping plays. Thus the great arch of the work is perfectly formed, from the solo interjections (not just from the violin!) to the symphonic dialogue between the partners. The chamber-music intimacy of the Hungarian Dances could not be achieved more powerfully or more beautifully than in Baiba Skride's tried-and-tested duo partnership with her sister Lauma Skride at the piano. Unhindered by the "pianistic" violin part with its many double stoppings, Baiba develops an ensemble that is in tempo and in its gestures carefully moulded with the piano. The piano may have what is clearly an accompanying part, and Lauma Skride certainly adapts to her sister's playing in an unpretentious manner, but nor is her part understated. The result is a performance of these atmospheric dances that is at times resilient and fiery, at other times melodic, gentle and smooth. They belong just as much to Brahms's art as do the formal stringency and unity we find in his large-scale works - and it is all the lovelier when we find all of this on a single CD recording.

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VIOLINO LATINO • Arabella Steinbacher (vn); Peter von Wienhardt (pn) • ORFEO 686 061 (65:04)


PIAZZOLLA Libertango (arr. Wienhardt). Adios nonino (arr. Calo). Milonga del angel (arr. Calo). Oblivión (arr. Wienhardt). Revirado (arr. Calo). PONCE (arr. Heifetz) Estrellita. FALLA La vida breve: Danse espagnole (arr. Kreisler). Canciones populares españolas: (arr. Kochanski) Nana; Polo. El amor brujo: Ritual Fire Dance. KREISLER La gitana. GINASTERA Pampeana No. 1. Rhapsodie. ALBÉNIZ Tango, op. 165/2. MILHAUD Scaramouche: Brazileira (arr. Heifetz). VILLA LOBOS O canto do cisne negro. WIENHARDT Salsa for BBWL. MOWER Bossa merengova (arr. Wienhardt)


Arabella Steinbacher and Peter von Wienhardt sound like names worlds apart from the program on Orfeo’s CD, “Violino Latino.” But Steinbacher comes out punching in Piazzolla’s Libertango and Milonga del angel . While the description of the tango as a vertical expression of a horizontal desire may not capture the mood of the program or the performances, and if there’s more fire than smoke even in pieces like Falla’s familiar “Danse espagnole,” nobody should object. Stewart Spencer attributes to Daniel Barenboim, Gidon Kremer (who plays this repertoire regularly), Yo-Yo Ma, Mstislav Rostropovich, Emanuel Ax, and Gary Burton the opinion that you can’t play Piazzolla’s compositions without getting your hands dirty. Steinbacher and Wienhardt certainly don’t. Steinbacher plays with an extremely wide dynamic range on the 1736 Muntz Stradivari, a violin that has impressed me in the past as sounding somewhat tubby. That clotting occurs only briefly in moments on the lower registers in Milonga del angel ; otherwise, it’s as steely as a saber (or Steinbacher makes it sound that way). Steinbacher and Wienhardt breathe a dragon’s breath into Kreisler’s Gitana , and play Heifetz’s signature Estrellita and his boffo transcription of Milhaud’s “Brazileira” with the kind of panache with which Heifetz himself wowed audiences. In Falla’s “Ritual Fire Dance,” Steinbacher employs hair-raising timbres to generate extra electricity, but Wienhardt certainly helps turn the crank, keeping the duo’s rhythmic verve from flagging. Albéniz’s Tango may be the only piece on the program to bear unfavorable comparisons with other performances; Arthur Grumiaux brought to this Kreisler transcription a smoldering warmth that haunts my memory almost 20 years after I first heard it. On the other hand, Steinbacher’s more aggressive reading may fit better into the overall program. Nevertheless, she settles into a sultry yet elegant reading of Falla’s “Nana” (she sounds somewhat hoarse in Villa Lobos’s similarly suggestive miniature). The two most recent pieces, a jaunty one by Wienhardt and a jazzy one by Mike Mower hold their own as more recent updates of the program’s older repertoire.


Steinbacher’s way with Piazzolla makes for quite a more passionate affair than did Gidon Kremer’s archer wit. Throughout these miniatures, in fact, Steinbacher recalls Kyung Wha Chung’s fiery intensity. Wienhardt, who made some of the arrangements, as well as Orfeo’s startlingly lifelike recorded sound, add to the excitement of already exciting playing and music. Strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

"The Orfeo issue is an absolute ‘must’ for any Fischer-Dieskau collection... Comprising all the recitals Fischer-Dieskau gave with Moore at the Salzburg Festival over 10 years starting in 1956, it is a rewarding compendium of his interpretations of all the most important composers of Lieder. Most have already appeared as separate issues, when I have lavished generous praise on them (and encores have been added that were not on the original issues). Much of the repertory was recorded at least once by the singer throughout his career in the studio, but – as I have frequently pointed out – these offerings have just that extra response an audience engenders.

The two Wolf recitals have not appeared before: one is a delightful CD of songs from the Spanish Songbook, shared in 1960 with Seefried and Werba, a rewarding pairing. The other ‘new’ Wolf CD, also from 1960, can serve as a template of every recital here by virtue of its complete command of every aspect of the Lieder singer’s art. It is devoted entirely to Goethe settings, beginning with a deeply thought-through account of the ‘Harfenspieler’ songs from Wilhelm Meister in which, right at the start of a programme, Fischer-Dieskau is entirely at his ease, piercing to the soul of these mysterious and wonderful pieces. That’s followed by a suitably mellifluous and ecstatic account of the heaven-seeking Ganymed. A sharply characterised Der Rattenfänger, a ruminative Anakreons Grab and a challengingly powerful Prometheus – all masterly settings and all played by Moore with exemplary understanding – are at the very heart of this programme. Among the five encores, the suitably eager Begegnung and a properly cynical Abschied find the singer and pianist at their most relaxed and outgoing.

The first (1956) recital, which I don’t think I had heard before, is another winner. Devoted entirely to Heine settings by Schubert and Schumann to mark the centenary of the poet’s death, it contains some of the greatest Lieder ever written, ideally delivered – Schubert’s six settings included in Schwanengesang and Schumann’s Dichterliebe, in readings as immediate as any by the singer, followed by a treasure-store of encores: soft-grained, warm accounts of Du bist wie eine Blume and Mondnacht among them, followed by a light, wistful Erstes Grün. I shall leave the remainder of these superb offerings (discs devoted to Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and post-Romantic composers) for the reader to discover.

Alan Blyth, The Gramophone

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Before the great wave of Bruckner conducting that has taken place since the 1970s, it was Hans Knappertsbusch (1888–1966) who stood out as unquestionably one of the most important Bruckner exponents, and Bruckner was part of his core repertoire. There are several recordings by him of the 3rd to 5th and 7th to 9th Symphonies, two in the case of the Seventh, a live recording from the 1949 Salzburg Festival with the Vienna Philharmonic, and this transfer direct from the original tapes of 1963 (and not “off the air”) with the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra. The Seventh is particularly suited to comparison with older recordings insofar as there is no question of the alternative versions and editions we otherwise associate with Bruckner. The difference between the two recordings is substantial, which is no particular surprise when it comes to “Kna”. His later reading released here is painted on a broader canvas, goes into less individual detail; at the same time, one can appreciate how comprehensively Knappertsbusch plans the grand design while noting with amazement – especially at the brass-scored fortissimo climaxes typical of Bruckner – how energetically the conductor shapes, phrases, “turns into music” even here, something one does not hear these days. The orchestra is impressive for its exceptional solo contributions. It is the same orchestra that would record the Bruckner symphonies complete with Günther Wand a decade later.

Years ago it seemed that Szymanowski's music was the property of Polish musicians, as little of it ventured outside Poland. As to the violin concertos, it was Thomas Zehetmair with Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony who broke the mold for many of us. Their EMI recording still holds a special place in the recorded literature of the composer. Yet here we have a terrific violinist accompanied by an equally superb orchestra and conductor who easily challenges that recording.

Szymanowski dedicated both of these concertos to Polish violinist Paul Kochanski, who encouraged the composer to write them and championed them until his death in 1933. He worked closely with Szymanowski on the violin parts. The First Violin Concerto shows the influence of Debussy and early Stravinsky in its exotic and rather impressionistic nature. Szymanowski based the work on a poem by Tadeusz Mici?ski, "May Night", though without any detailed musical programme. It has a nocturne-like atmosphere when it begins and then grows into something dynamic and ecstatic before evaporating pianissimo, "as if with the muted voices of the night", so described by Sebastian Strauss in his excellent notes to the CD. Where Zehetmair and Rattle brought out the Debussian elements well in their recording, Skride and Petrenko are bolder and more dynamic. Skride has a vast range of colours in her violin tone and Petrenko provides very detailed accompaniment. Both violinists are well integrated with their orchestral counterparts, but with Skride and Petrenko the listener is more aware of the intricate detail of the composition. Some of this is due to the clearer and more present recording, but mostly it is the artists whose interpretative focus is different. Both are valid approaches to the First Violin Concerto. With Skride and Petrenko I am reminded of Stravinsky's Firebird, rather than Debussy. That's not to say that the unique character of Szymanowski is in the least slighted. The concertos represent the composer at his mature best. It is interesting that stylistically he did not travel all that far sixteen years later when he penned the Second Violin Concerto, even with its allusions to the folk music of the Tatra Mountains.

There is a lesser difference of approach in the two accounts of the Violin Concerto No. 2, where the folk elements are made apparent, even if the orchestral texture is dense at times. Nonetheless, Skride and Petrenko are that much bolder and the recording allows one to appreciate the orchestral part better than with Rattle. The Oslo Philharmonic plays wonderfully throughout both works and I continue to be hugely impressed with Vasily Petrenko whose selection of repertoire continues to bring out his strengths. I am a real fan of his Shostakovich and it is now hoped he will perform more Szymanowski. As for Baiba Skride, her recording two years earlier of the Frank Martin and Stravinsky violin concertos quickly has become one of my favourite discs - especially for the Martin work which had not received its due before that. I find it amazing how quietly Skride creeps in at the beginning of Szymanowski's First Violin Concerto with a silvery tone and then can turn this into something intense and lustrous later in that work and throughout the Second Violin Concerto. With her fabulous technique I am sure we will be hearing a great deal from her as she records pieces that demand to be heard, rather than doing only the warhorses on which so many violinists today have earned their reputations. Patricia Kopatchinskaja is another such violinist who has demonstrated that doing modern repertoire well enhances one's reputation more than just playing it safe with the chestnuts of the past.

If the two concertos on this disc were not enough to convince me of her extraordinary talent, Baiba Skride supplements these with the perfect "filler", the Myths for violin and piano. Here she is accompanied on the piano by her sister, Lauma. The three Myths with their titles of "The Fountain of Arethusa", "Narcissus" and "Dryads and Pan" respectively, are clearly impressionistic with piano writing that recalls Debussy in its delicate filigree. Szymanowski composed them the year before the Violin Concerto No. 1 and some of the violin writing, in particular the high register of the opening of "The Fountain of Arethusa", can also be found in the violin concerto. The harmony in the second Myth, "Narcissus", on the other hand, is also reminiscent of Ravel. The last of the Myths, "Dryads and Pan", is virtuosic and whimsical and sounds less like Debussy or Ravel - more like the Szymanowski of the concertos. I compared this recording with another favourite, the reissued disc of these works with Isabelle Faust and Ewa Kupiec on Harmonia Mundi that I reviewed here last year. Where Faust and Kupiec are more direct in their interpretation, the Skrides show greater tonal and dynamic variety. Their tempi are also varied more than the formers. There is not all that much in it and I would not want to be without either account. The deciding factor comes down to the particular couplings. Faust and Kupiec contribute first-rate performances of Jana?ek's Violin Sonata and Lutos?awski's Partita and Subito on their CD.

For an all-Szymanowski programme, this current one will be hard to equal. Indeed, the artists have set a new standard for the violin concertos. Lauma Skride is as impressive in her role as her sister is, so a recording of Szymanowski's piano music would be welcome from her at any time.

I have reviewed many superb recordings this year, but none finer than this one. It should appear high on my list of Recordings of the Year.

– Leslie Wright, MusicWeb International

At the most recent production at the Vienna State Opera, the twins were sung by Nina Stemme and - for the first time in the role - Johan Botha. Since then both soloists have enjoyed international success in even more dramatic Wagner roles. This CD release of the live performance of the first act is ideal for all those who are curious to hear more, but perhaps hesitate to get to grips with complete, modern performances of the Ring.

BRITTEN Solo Cello Suites: Nos. 1–3 • Daniel Müller-Schott (vc) • ORFEO C 835 111 A (70:33)

Next to Bach’s six, there are probably no greater challenges to the art of the cello than the three suites for solo cello of Benjamin Britten, even considering those by Hindemith and Reger. Britten had wanted to compose six but died before he could write more than three. No matter; these are major pieces, and it is good to see them coming more into their own with a number of recent recordings of all or some of them.

We are told that it was hearing Rostropovich play the first Shostakovich cello concerto in 1960 that impelled Britten to write a sonata for him, which they performed the following year, and to write the Cello Symphony in 1963. The three suites followed in 1964, 1967, and 1971. It is customary to grant Rostropovich authority in the performance of the first two suites (he never recorded the third), though he himself had some later reservations about his recording of the first, because he thought he played it so much better later. But these suites have now become the province of young cellists and that’s a good thing.

Daniel Müller-Schott has all the technical skills necessary (a phenomenal pp , for instance). He takes a forthright approach to the first suite. The opening Canto is firmly stated and adumbrates what follows. His performance sounds to me more a matter of statements about than a lyrical exploration of Britten’s voice. On the whole, he seems much more comfortable in the second suite, though the concluding Ciaccona occasionally loses its sense of line. The third suite, however, starts off with a wonderfully caressing Lento, and Müller-Schott is completely engaged with what follows. No recording of Bach’s or Britten’s suites, however good, and this is certainly a good one, can take the place of hearing them live.

This recording is certainly to be recommended and it gets better as it goes on. Müller-Schott has a slightly grainy sound and this fits his approach. He has clearly taken to heart Leonard Bernstein’s view of Britten’s music that “if you really hear it, not just listen to it superficially, you become aware of something very dark.” These are dark recordings, indeed. This is not the only view possible of these suites, however, and I am also much taken with the more lyrical one by Tim Hugh (Naxos), a recording that seems to have slipped past us, and Peter Wispelwey has a recent (2010) live recording of the first suite that is wonderful to hear (Onyx). These are good times for Britten’s response to Bach.

FANFARE: Alan Swanson

MOZART The Magic Flute ? Wilhelm Furtwängler (cond); Irmgard Seefried ( Pamina ); Wilma Lipp ( Queen of the Night ); Walter Ludwig ( Tamino ); Karl Schmitt-Walter ( Papageno ); Josef Greindl ( Sarastro ); Vienna St Op Ch; Vienna PO ? ORFEO C 650 053 D, mono (3 CDs: 176:35) Live: Salzburg 7/27/1949)


This performance was first publicly issued on the Discocorp LP label, and then on CD by Arlecchino and Arkadia, the latter slightly better than the former. It was then sonically improved on by Music & Arts, and in Fanfare 19:5 I reviewed the Music & Arts release. Now, along comes an Orfeo issue that far surpasses both Music & Arts and Tahra (which is almost identical to Music & Arts). Orfeo?s is the first release that is officially sanctioned by the Salzburg Festival, and while the original master tapes have not survived, the Salzburg archives had at their disposal material superior to the off-the-air sources that have been the basis of prior releases. The sound here is far less harsh and strident, completely lacking the distortion found on all prior releases, and in fact even superior to EMI?s release of the slightly superior 1951 performance with a similar cast (EMI 65356).


From the chords that open the Overture, it is apparent that this is a weighty reading, one very far from today?s theories of how to perform Mozart. Those opening chords are arpeggiated (or, depending on your point of view, just sloppy), and have a significant mass about them. Throughout, Furtwängler?s performance is rooted in the 19th-century tradition?rich in color and texture, filled with tempo adjustments, and far weightier than we would encounter today. If you are open to this approach, it has probably never been done better. It is, as I said in my earlier review, a noble, humanistic Flute , one where the text has a strong impact on the conductor?s view of how to manage the music; it is a performance that smells of the theater. But if your idea of this music is that it must be light and fleeting, you will probably wish to avoid it.


The cast is very good, though not as good as the 1951 repeat of the production that is on EMI. There were two important cast changes between 1949 and 1951, and both are significant improvements (probably not a coincidence). The biggest difference is the 1951 Papageno, Erich Kunz, who is superb vocally and dramatically; Karl Schmitt-Walter here is limited by a dry timbre and what seems to be a lack of dramatic and comedic imagination. The other change is Tamino. Walter Ludwig here is sensitively phrased and dramatically inflected, but his tone is throaty; in 1951, Anton Dermota was a clear improvement.


Aside from that, the cast is the same in both, and is superb. Particularly noteworthy is Irmgard Seefried?s glowing Pamina. Wilma Lipp manages the second of the Queen?s two viciously difficult arias better than the first, but few have done better with both. Josef Greindl?s Sarastro is thrillingly dark-toned, though admittedly occasionally out of tune. The remainder of the cast is luxurious?in fact, only at a level possible in a festival setting like this.


Furtwängler collectors are going to want this?even if they have the Tahra or Music & Arts editions. The warm, clear sound here is such an improvement that it casts the performance in a new light. Helpful and interesting notes accompany the set, but (as is typical of historic reissues) no text or translation.


FANFARE: Henry Fogel

For Claudio Abbado, the European youth orchestras he founded and conducted were always an affair of the heart. + With them he could live out his enthusiasm without compromising either quality or repertoire. + Mr. Abbado, who died in January 2014, conducted many concerts and operas in Salzburg, and not just with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics. + He also led international youth orchestras to major Festival successes. + This CD impressively documents his live recording of the very first concert of the European Community Youth Orchestra from 1979 in a program both varied and ambitious, ranging from Beethoven via Prokofiev and Stravinsky to Schoenberg’s Survivor from Warsaw with the Vienna Jeunesse Choir and the great actor Maximilian Schell as narrator. + The program is complemented by a 1994 recording of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in the ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ by Modest Mussorgsky – a composer whom Abbado did much to rehabilitate through championing the original versions of his works.

Recorded live at the Wiener Konzerthaus on October 30, 1952.

Sergiu Celibidache was one of the truly unique, unconventional conductors of the 20th century. When Furtwängler was banned from conducting after the Second World War, Celibidache restructured the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted it until Furtwängler’s return. However, after Furtwängler’s death in 1954 and the subsequent appointment of Herbert von Karajan as his successor, Celibidache’s relations with the orchestra were broken off. Over the ensuing years, up to the moment that he took on the Munich Philharmonic in 1979, Celibidache never tied himself to a single orchestra for any length of time. Instead he led a truly nomadic existence as a restless artist. He seldom travelled to musical centres such as Vienna.
His concert with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra from October 1952, now released in its entirety by Orfeo thus offers interesting insights into a time when Celibidache still seemed to be weighing up his options. In Brahms’s First Symphony he comes across as more urgent in his tempi than was the case with the conductor we know from later years and from his later recordings. However, he was already outstanding in his sense of tone colour and in his ability to get his orchestral musicians truly to listen to one another. This is evident in 'Les Préludes'at the beginning of the concert, and above all in the 'Concerto for the Left Hand', played by none other than Robert Casadesus. With his pianistic refinement, French clarity and aristocratic command, it was not surprising that Casadesus became the interpreter of this work. In his collaboration with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Sergiu Celibidache, he succeeded in exemplary fashion in maintaining the tension throughout that is characteristic of this concerto, and in making the most of the grotesque nature of many of its episodes. A fascinating encounter between two great musicians.

"Nowhere does the CD make clear whether these performances were recorded before live concert audiences in Birmingham Symphony Hall on October 16–17, 2008; but, in concert or not, this is one of the more spectacular sounding symphonic recordings to come my way in some time. The dynamic range is awesome, and I’m pretty sure that for the first time I heard details of Tchaikovsky’s scoring, even in the most densely orchestrated passages, that I’ve never heard before.

It’s been such a long time since I last listened to Tchaikovsky’s Hamlet Overture, I’d forgotten what a seething cauldron of a witch’s brew it’s able to stir up. Part Romeo and Juliet and part Francesca da Rimini, the piece grew out of an invitation the composer received to write incidental music for a production of Shakespeare’s play. The project fizzled, but Tchaikovsky decided to put his efforts to good use in a concert overture cum fantasia that, had it been presented as an actual curtain raiser, would probably have upstaged the play it was intended to introduce. I mean, whoever heard of a 19-minute bombast-filled overture? There’s little in the way of musical storytelling or depiction of the play’s characters; and the big, heart-throbbing melody one expects from Tchaikovsky, atypically, never quite materializes. Rather, the work is more of a psychological study in the moods, motivations, and states of mind of the dramatis personae, most of which and for most of the time are angry and highly agitated. The Hamlet Overture makes for a logical discmate in that chronologically it’s exactly contemporaneous with the Fifth Symphony; both works claim 1888 as their date of origin. Again, as with the Symphony, Nelsons turns out a fantastic performance...He whips up the proceedings to quite a frenzied pitch; so, if you like loud and exciting passages to be really loud and exciting, Nelsons and the CBSO will not disappoint."

-- Jerry Dubins, Fanfare [1/2010]

Classical Music

WIENER OPERNFEST 2005

Johan Botha was heard at the Vienna Staatsoper a total of 222 times before his untimely death. His powerful, truly great voice shone like a beacon across the world of opera. Though he was mostly known as a singer of the German opera repertoire, he also had amazing success with Italian operas which are documented on this double album. Alongside partners like Krassimira Stoyanova, Violeta Urmana and Dmitri Hvorostovsky he knew how to enthrall the Vienna Opera Community. The present release features arias from Italian standards such as Don Carlo, Aida, Otello, Tosca, Turandot, and others.

Nobody mastered and shaped the great roles of high drama in the post-war period as effortlessly as Birgit Nilsson - this is her stupendous breakthrough as Isolde at Bayreuth with the musical colleagues she so highly respected. Birgit Nilsson, the young Swedish singer, had, together with Sigurd Bjorling, been recommended by Leo Blech to Winifred Wagner back in 1948 “because her sons felt eager and obliged to establish a new ensemble,” or so Wolfgang Wagner commented in 1994. Nilsson declined an offer to portray Sieglinde in Die Walkure in Bayreuth in 1951 due to an engagement at Glyndebourne. After much negotiation, she was first engaged at the festival in 1953 when she assumed the soprano part in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It was this production from 1958, however, that cemented her place in Bayreuth history. Wolfgang Wagner observed in his memoirs: “The way that Birgit Nilsson and Wolfgang Windgassen, in collaboration with Karl Bohm and Wieland Wagner, became the perfect duo in the title of Tristan… had been part of my design several years previously, and so I was delighted to have conferred the ‘minor orders’ on these two great artists.”

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A genuinely great instrumentalist who certainly left his mark on the music world was cellist Heinrich Schiff, who died last year and is not adequately represented in recordings. He can be heard here in his full-on vigorous musicality with a partner who is unusually his equal, in three major works of the cello repertoire, the Sonata op. 40 by Shostakovich, the middle sonata by Beethoven and the last one by Brahms. The Austrian cellist and conductor, Heinrich Schiff, began playing piano when he was 6, and took up cello at the age of 10. His major teachers with Tobias Kühne and André Navarra, with whom he shares the qualities of a lean, centered, yet singing tone and a lyrical approach to the instrument.studied cello with Tobias Kühne and André Navarra. He studied conducting with Hans Swarowsky, one of the great conducting teachers of the time. Heinrich Schiff played the famous "Mara" Stradivarius made in 1711 and "Sleeping Beauty" made by Montagnana in Venice in 1739.

This performance, recorded on November 14, 1955, was part of the four-week festival that took place at the Vienna State Opera celebrating its reopening after having been destroyed near the end of World War II. Meistersinger had long been a Viennese favorite and was performed 65 times between 1949 and 1955 at the interim Theater an der Wien. It enjoyed luxury casting and great conductors: Clemens Krauss, Rudolf Moralt, Hans Knappertsbusch, Karl Böhm, Rudolf Kempe, and Fritz Busch. For the return to the State Opera, director Karl Böhm invited the Hungarian-born Fritz Reiner, a perfectionist who in the previous 20 years had gained a reputation as one of America's finest conductors. Rehearsals, it was said, were grueling; but judging from this recording it was worth the work.

You can tell much about the entire performance from Reiner's Prelude. It is precise, grand, and detailed, with frisky, playful chattering in the upper strings underpinned by a more muscular approach in the lower strings. But it never becomes aggressive or reckless enough to smash into the opening scene; it grows into it naturally. (Where else can such a complex expression end but in prayer?) Throughout the opera we're treated to spirited tempos and playing from the Vienna Philharmonic that Reiner slows down to good effect: The Fliedermonolog is relaxed and as soft as cotton; the prelude to Act 3 wafts in the air gradually and wistfully; the quintet is a moment frozen in time and is presented with great breadth. We can feel what each character is feeling, even if a couple of them don't have the breath to express it.

Beckmesser's false "prize" song is slow to start, and so is the unease and eventual laughter of the assembled crowd. And the real "Prize Song" is accompanied lyrically, with sweep up to the high points, after which Sachs' speech about German art comes as a powerful missive. What the Viennese of 1955 thought of it, with its nasty recent memories, is anyone's guess, but the opera ends with true joy erupting, and much of it has to do with Reiner's ability to balance light and heavy, upper joy with lower gravity--a great reading.

Paul Schöffler, the possessor of a voice that never sounded young, is tonally a bit dry here but nonetheless does not present Sachs as an old man; he is vital and sure of himself. Sachs is a man who prods fate a bit, just because he can, and Schöffler sings with the assurance and potency and shading of a man of wisdom, his voice gaining in strength as the opera progresses. And his pianissimo singing is always handsome, never resorting to falsetto. His is the best Sachs on CD, bettering his own performance under Knappertsbusch on Decca.

Hans Beirer's Walther is neither as sweet and ardorous as Sandor Konya's nor as simply gorgeous as Domingo's (for Jochum on DG), and in fact he sounds indisposed. But his indisposition is only vocal, and while I realize how odd that sounds, his beautiful phrasing and shading, sincerity, vigor, and musicianship make up for a lack of grand tone and some dry singing. It's a performance impossible to dislike.

I was put off by Irmgard Seefried's Eva at first--her second act is too cutesy and pert--but she grows into the part and is lovely in the third act despite lacking anything like a trill. Gottlob Frick's Pogner is important. His address to the Masters in Act 1 has real authority and he's warm and tender with Eva in the second act. Erich Kunz sings all of Beckmesser's notes (save the silly falsetto high-A that ends his monolog in Sachs' shop) and has remarkable "face"; while we don't exactly feel sorry for him at the end, he clearly is not entirely mockable either. The David of Murray Dickie also is almost visible, and he sings with an impetuous young man's certainty, his high-Bs ringing out easily and pointedly. Rosette Anday's Magdalene is stodgy and hectoring; Eberhard Waechter's Nachtigall is mellifluous; and the other Mastersingers bark just a bit too much.

The sound is Austrian Radio mono from 1955 but sounds 10 years younger--grand and able to cope with the big climaxes, clear in the ensembles, clean in quiet moments. Aside from the Kubelik version (various labels, including Myto, Calig, Arts) with Thomas Stewart, Konya, and Gundula Janowitz, and possibly Solti's second recording (Decca) with Ben Heppner, Karita Mattila, and (small-scale but impressive) José van Dam, this set goes to the top of the list.

--Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com