Classical Music

Although all of this live material has been released previously (and most of it also recorded by Kubelík commercially), this box is far from complete. There are no concertos, for example, and Orfeo released more Hartmann, a Handel Concerto Grosso, and choral works as well. Granted, this set features “symphonic recordings,” but it would have been ideal for collectors to have everything in the series in one place. The repertoire also mixes the live, “red label” issues with some of Orfeo’s very earliest releases, such as the Smetana Ma Vlast and Brahms symphonies.

There are four truly outstanding performances among these fifteen discs: Dvorák’s Sixth Symphony, Janácek’s Sinfonietta, Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, and Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. The Hartmann Symphonic Hymns is very good too (and hard to find otherwise). The rest of the Dvorák (Symphonies 7-9 and the two serenades) is mostly fine, even if Kubelik has already done excellent work in this repertoire. The same holds true of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, a performance interestingly different from Kubelik’s benchmark version with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

The Haydn (Symphony No 99) and Mozart (Symphonies 25, 38, 40 and 41) are standard, big-band classical repertoire with no outstanding features, and the same might be said of the good but not great Beethoven’s Ninth, the Berlioz Symphonie fantastique and Corsaire Overture, the Bruckner Eighth, and the Smetana and Brahms pieces already mentioned.

The recordings date from 1963-85, and the sonics range from decent broadcast quality to superb.

– ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Includes opera(s): aria(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Bavarian State Orchestra. Conductors: Karl Böhm, Carlos Kleiber.

This stereo edition is far cleaner and more open than any prior release.



GIORDANO Andrea Chénier • Lovro von Matacic, cond; Franco Corelli ( Andrea Chénier ); Renata Tebaldi ( Maddalena ); Ettore Bastianini ( Gérard ); Vienna St Op O & Ch • ORFEO 682 062 (2 CDs: 117:41) Live: Vienna 6/26/1960


This performance of Giordano’s masterpiece has been around on a number of labels (Fonit Cetra, Melodram, etc.), but now Orfeo has given it legitimacy, with an authorized release taken from the archival tapes of the Vienna State Opera. Although the prior versions were adequate, given that their sources were off-the-air broadcasts, this stereo edition is far cleaner and more open than any prior release. The sound is too bright, but one can fix that at home by attenuating the highs.


Although Chénier has received many studio recordings and a number of other live performance releases, only a few really convey the thrills this opera is capable of giving the listener. The two truly great modern Chéniers since World War II have been Mario Del Monaco and Franco Corelli. (Yes, Domingo has done it well—but never had the genuine heft and metal in the voice the role ideally wants.) Del Monaco made a terrific studio recording for Decca (with Tebaldi and Bastianini, brilliantly conducted by Gavazzeni), and there is a splendid live Del Monaco Met performance circulating, with Milanov and Warren conducted by Cleva. Corelli, on the other hand, finds himself in less fortuitous surroundings for his EMI recording. The biggest negative is Gabriele Santini’s lead-footed conducting, lacking propulsion, color, and intensity. Antonietta Stella is an above average Maddalena, but she is no Tebaldi, and Sereni too is quite good without achieving greatness.


This was one of those nights when everything in the opera house was “on.” Matacic (who conducted Corelli’s splendid EMI Pagliacci set) has the measure of this score, and knows when to expand the line and when to push ahead. The conducting is splendid throughout. Tebaldi, as was her wont, strains a bit for some of the top notes, but is at home in one of her signature roles. If there was ever a more beautiful natural soprano voice, I haven’t heard it in 50 years of listening to live and recorded opera, and her natural feel for the shape of this kind of music was inborn. Gérard was also one of Bastianini’s signature roles, and I’ve never heard him sing it any better than he does here. His “Nemico della patria” brings the house down.


In every way, this is a classic recording of the verismo school of Italian opera. Andrea Chénier is, first and foremost, about thrilling grand operatic singing—and you get that for every minute of the almost two hours. When you get tired of old fogies like me complaining about the good old days, take this set off your shelves and listen to it, and then tell me that you can even imagine encountering a performance of this music on this level today.


Orfeo includes illuminating notes about the history of Italian opera performance in postwar Vienna, and the place of this production in the house’s history (it was only performed twice with this cast, and the recording is of the first night). Put simply, this set is what grand opera is all about.


FANFARE: Henry Fogel

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Hans Knappertsbusch is regarded as one of the great Wagner conductors of the past and his Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg does not disappoint! This recording was performed at the 1960 Bayreuth Festival with the choir and orchestra of the festival. The cast is full of extraordinary performances by Theo Adam (Veit Pogner), Karl Schmitt-Walter (Beckmesser), Gerhard Stolze (David), and more. Josef Greindl's debut in the role of Hans Sachs is a true highpoint in this production. Evan is portrayed by the superb Elisabeth Grümmer who sings with perfection, touching emotion and convincing youthfulness. Knappertsbusch's interpretation of this magnificent work by Wagner is very cultivated and restrained, supportive of the voices, and overall exciting and festive!

"This recording captures the opening night of the 1960 Bayreuth Festival in Wieland's (in)famous "Mastersingers without Nuremberg" production... Orfeo have released this performance to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of legendary Wagner conductor Hans Knappertsbusch (1888-1965).

The Sachs of Josef Greindl is the highlight of the singing cast... He manages a magnificent combination of worldly wisdom, weariness and warm humanity, all the while managing to sound about as lyrical and beautiful as you could hope for in this part. His Fliedermonolog is deeply reflective and enormously moving, and there is a glint of mischief in his voice during the Act 2 skirmish the Beckmesser. The great monologues of the third act are all superb, be it the weariness of Wahn, the deeply moving quality of his address to the people after Wach Auf, or the slightly finger-wagging final pages.

The mono sound is remarkably good for its age... Anyone who seeks out this recording will do so mainly because it captures several legends in full flow." - MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Classical Music

An extraordinary selection of solo, chamber, and orchestral recordings featuring on one the great pianists of the first half of the 20th century.

Classical Music

Among the more attractive obligations and at the same time the greatest artistic risks facing a leading company like the Vienna State Opera are new productions of the core repertory. By 1971, when a new production of Verdi's La traviata was staged under the musical direction of Josef Krips, the house could already look back on more than two hundred performances of the work since the end of the Second World War. Krips himself had already conducted the opera, including a performance in the company's temporary home at the Theater an der Wien, but none of the three principals had previously appeared in their roles in Vienna. For the protagonist, Ileana Cotrubas, the first night also marked a huge step forward on the road to an international career. Few young sopranos - especially in a performance captured live on the radio - have been as successful in achieving so convincing and touching a balance between the vocal agility needed in the opening act and the lyricism and expressive depth of the following acts of the opera. During the years that followed, Violetta became a role that Ileana Cotrubas was often invited to sing in Vienna and with which she was closely associated not only there but elsewhere too, including appearances at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, and the Metropolitan Opera, New York. Both in New York and in Vienna it was Cornell MacNeil who as Giorgio Germont had the task of persuading her to renounce her love of Alfredo, which he did with his powerful Heldenbariton voice - it was not entirely unexpected when only a year later he appeared in Vienna as Wagner's Flying Dutchman. Alfredo himself was sung by Nicolai Gedda, who found in the part a particularly congenial Italian role to set alongside so many others in a repertory of almost unimaginable breadth. His phrasing was wonderfully simple and yet precisely adapted to his partners' needs. Not for a moment did he force his voice, and yet the top C at the end of his second-act aria could not have been more perfectly focused. Add to this the clear dramatic accents that he brought to the role, and no one in the audience could have wished for a better performance of the figure of the young lover. The rest of the ensemble, which included a young Edita Gruberova as Flora Bervoix, was admirably attuned to the flexible nature of Krips's Italianate style of conducting. If only all the classics of the repertory could always be presented on this same high level...