Wagner: Parsifal (highlights) [CD]

The main part of this set is devoted to the excerpts recorded by Karl Muck, from Acts I & II in Bayreuth (1927), and nearly the whole of Act III in Berlin (1928). It also includes the Good Friday Music (with Alexander Kipnis, rather too loud, and Fritz Wolff) conducted by Siegfried Wagner (!) in 1927, and a "suite" (Act I Prelude, Acts I & III Transformation Music and Good Friday Music), recorded in 1913 by Berlin Philharmonic (or part thereof) under Alfred Hertz, who conducted the first non-Bayreuth Parsifal (Cosima was not amused) and the first Covent Garden Parsifal.

Quite apart from musical considerations, the sense of being so close to the fountainhead is thrilling. And musically it's mostly pretty good too. The sound in 1913 is amazingly good, so that the experience is a great deal more than historical curiosity. The Muck Act III is justly famous, above all for the fine conducting and for the moving Gurnemanz of Ludwig Hoffman, but the earlier excerpts are less successful, with a rather uncertain (and small but loud) chorus from the pre-Pitz era - the chorus in Act III is incomparably better. The sound of the 1927/28 recordings is fine.

You do get 2 Act I Preludes, 2 Act III Transformations and 3 Good Fridays (one orchestral), and no Klingsor or Kundry. So (apart from Act III) it's excerpts, not an abridged Parsifal. But what a sense of almost being in at the beginning!

oh WOW. This is such a great bargain, and even if the price had been twice as high then it would still be an essential purchase. The main reasons for buying this set are the recordings of 'Parsifal', made between 1927 and 1928, by Karl Muck, one of the great pre-war Wagnerian conductors. Nearly all of Act III was recorded at two different locations, one being the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth and the other the Singakademie in Berlin. The only part of this act not recorded is the opening exchange between Gurnemanz, Parsifal and Kundry. Unfortunately, funds didn't extend so far as to be able to hire a soprano for Kundry's role. But everything else is here, including the prelude. You may be thinking 'hmm....1927? The sound must be terrible'. But it's NOT. Mark Obert-Thorn, the engineer, has done a terrific job of cleaning up the original 78s. Although there is some inevitable hiss and scratch here and there the voices and orchestra come across with astounding clarity (considering the antiquity of the originals). These originals were first released as 11 records, and were a milestone in the history of the grammophone; and to record them the music had to be sung in little snippets. How incredible then that the finished result should've had such sweep and majesty. This recording of Act III has been called the 'greatest and most uplifting' version ever put on record, and so it is. The playing of the Berlin State Opera Orchestra is magnificent; the singing, notably Pistor as Parsifal and Ludwig Hofmann as Gurnemanz, as good as has ever been recorded, especially Pistor. Muck conducts with such intensity and fervour that by the Act's conclusion, when that heavenly chorus begins, you'll be in awe of what you've just heard. Another great highlight is Hofmann's singing of the 'Good Friday Music': such feeling, and so lyrical and sweet.

The other extracts are also noteworthy. Muck conducts a slow and intense performance of the great Act I prelude, and also of the choral extracts in Act I. Siegfried Wagner, the composer's son, stepped in at Bayreuth and conducted for other recording of the 'Good Friday Music'. Forget the performance, think of the historical significance of actually hearing him conduct at Bayreuth. More history is uniquely captured here. The great bells of Montsalvat which Wagner commisioned for the premiere in 1882 were recorded here for the first and last time. They were destroyed by the Nazis to help the war effort in the 1940s, but in this recording they resound once more with a startling and extraordinary sound. One critic likened them to a 'herd of Bosendorfer pianos'! Not an inaccurate comparison. The other brief extracts are really of historical interest only i.e. a very early recording of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. But you'll be buying this for Muck's 'Parsifal'. I had bought this set to give to a friend of mine for his birthday, but having listened to it I'm now hooked and he'll have to get something else! It obviously doesn't supplant a full version of 'Parsifal' (try Knappertsbusch's 1962 account or, in spectacular digital sound and with great playing, and conducting, Karajan's DG set with the BPO). However, IF Muck had recorded the whole opera (and what a thought that is) then there would be little doubt that the entire set would've been the one to have. As it is you can enjoy a tantalising glimpse of what might have been.

Hans Knappertsbusch ruled the Kingdom of the Grail at Bayreuth through the 50s and early 60s. Karl Muck did much the same in the period before the Nazis came to power. At this time the production and Joukowsky's sets were still fossilised by Cosima in the form the Meister had set down for the first performances more than 40 years before.

If the musical direction also followed traditional lines, it must be said it was a great tradition. We have no aural record of how Hermann Levi - who conducted the first performances with the composer on hand - interpreted the work, but these Muck performances, particularly the almost complete Act 3, are among the greatest. (As an aside, it's interesting that the ever-practical Wagner chose Levi, the son of a Rabbi, to lead his most 'religious' opera - so much for his anti-semitism.) Like Kna, Muck had the ability, so important in a Parsifal conductor, of seeing the work in long paragraphs, of relating tempi to each other with the long-term always in view, of weighting climaxes so that only the most important carry the greatest weight.

The fill-ups on this disc are excellent, too. Shorter excerpts from Acts 1 and 2 from Muck - it's good to compare the different requirement of his fine Flowermaiden scene with the needs of the more hieratic Grail Castle passages. And Siegfried Wagner proves himself no mean conductor of his father's works in a radiant Good Friday scene with an excellent Parsifal in Fritz Wolff and a superb Gurnemanz in Alexander Kipnis.

All in all, this disc is much more than an historical record. It is a great performance and you can hear it in sound which, for its day (not that long after the introduction of electric recording), has come up with great presence and depth.