Romantic Era
3839 products
Dvorak: String Quartets Vol 7 / Vlach Quartet Prague
The Ultimate Wagner Opera Album
Wagner: Tannhauser / Sawallisch, Windgassen, Fischer-dieskau, Bumbry
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
Verdi: Un Ballo In Maschera
Verdi: Il trovatore (Live)
Chopin Edition Vol. 8 - Preludes & Variations
Classical Piano
Il Mito dell'Opera
Richard Wagner: Das Rheingold
Das Rheingold: Frantz-poell
Die Walkure
Norma: Act 1
Bellini: La Sonnambula
Verdi: Aida
Verdi: La Forza Del Destino / Cerquetti, Christoff
Dvorak: The Spectre's Bride / Meister, ORF Vienna Radio Symphony
-----
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)
Glinka: Zhizn' za tsarya (A Life for the Tsar) (1954)
Bellini: I Puritani
Brahms: Deutsche Volkslieder / Coburn, Prey, Parsons
Beethoven: The Solo Concertos / Vladar, Van Kuelen, Speckel, Wiener Kammerorchester
– Gramophone
Andres Segova Plays Fernando Sor
During the Fifties Andres Segovia strengthened his fame as the best classical guitarist in the world with a series of wonderful recordings containing the most significant parts of his repertoire. Segovia’s 19th century music repertoire was focused almost exclusively on the Spanish composers, composers the he liked best. He did not often consider Italian composers. Among the Spanish composers Fernando Sor (Barcellona, 1778 – Paris, 1839) had been his favorite; he was a talented composer and performer who wrote Studies for Guitar which featured a great melodic originality that is even now still used in the education of classical guitarists. This album collects, for the first time, all the recordings that Segovia made of Sor works during the 1950s, which were the best moments of his musical career .
VERDI, G.: Trovatore (Il) [Opera] (1951)
Gounod: Faust, CG 4 (Sung in Italian) [Live]
Romantic Choral Music: German Motets
Il Mito dell'Opera - Virginia Zeani (Live Recordings 1957-19
BRAHMS, J.: Violin Concerto, Op. 77 / CHAUSSON, E.: Poeme (N
Schubert, F.: String Quartets Nos. 13-15 (The Last 3 Quartet
Brahms, J.: 21 Hungarian Dances (arr. J. Joachim)
