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Wagner: Götterdämmerung, Act 2 Complete
  

Wagner: Götterdämmerung, Act 2 Complete

~ Richard Wagner (Composer), Leo Blech (Conductor), Thomas Beecham (Conductor), Berlin State Opera Orchestra (Orchestra), Royal Opera House Chorus and Orchestra Covent Garden (Orchestra), et al.
3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Product details

  • Orchestra: Berlin State Opera Orchestra, Royal Opera House Chorus and Orchestra Covent Garden
  • Conductor: Leo Blech, Thomas Beecham
  • Composer: Richard Wagner
  • Audio CD (22 Aug 2005)
  • SPARS Code: AAD
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Guild
  • ASIN: B000ANH2T4
  • Other Editions: MP3 Download
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 501,791 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing version of a great recording, 4 Nov 2006
By Guy Roberts (London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
When I heard Guild were coming out with this version of Beecham's 1936 Gotterdammerung I was quite excited. With Frida Leider, Lauritz Melchior and Herbert Janssen, it remains one of the relatively few Wagner recordings from the late 1930's at Covent Garden. London audiences of the time were priviledged to hear the greatest ever Wagnerian singers and the greatest Wagnerian conductors (Furtwangler, Beecham, Reiner) which for reasons of both politics and distance was not really possible in Germany or the USA.

I already owned the Preiser one-CD version and I was looking forward to hearing the extra material, mainly from a second Beecham performance of 29 May, which was to be added to the 14 May material on the Preiser CD.

I have to say I was unimpressed with most of this extra material. Ludwig Weber's Hagen is mostly unpleasant to listen to (in great contrast to his almost definitive performance at Bayreuth in 1951)and the general sound quality is not that good. Indeed it is the sound quality that is the big let-down on this set. It is very noticably poorer than the Preiser version and also noisier. At one point when Melchior in full flow, the recording actually jumps a groove, which does not happen on the Preiser version. I find it very surprising that the Guild team would go to all the trouble of compiling a complete Beecham Gotterdammerung Act 2, a labour of love if ever there was one, while being so careless of the sound quality.

Sadly Guild is giving us this unnecessarily bad sound quality in addition to the sonic problems inherent on this recording. These are mostly a matter of the balance between the orchestra and singers, which is far too heavily weighted in favour of the former. Clearly the microphone must have been placed directly above the orchestra pit leaving the singers to drift in and out depending on their position on the stage at the time. Where it not for the exceptional quality of the performance it would not really be worth listening to it for this reason alone.

Having said all that this is one of only two or three live recordings of Wagner made by Frida Leider that have been preserved and thus is of the greatest importance. Leider was Flagstad's immediate predecessor as the reigning greatest Wagnerian soprano and during the 1936-1938 seasons, both of them were recorded at Covent Garden. Flagstad and Melchior in Tristan in 1936 and 1937, under Reiner and Beecham, and both Flagstad and Leider in excerpts of the Ring Cycles during each of the three seasons. The 1937 recordings with Flagstad under Furwangler in 1937 are justly famous, including a complete Act 3 of Die Walkure and extensive excerpts of Gotterdammerung (used as the basis of the Guild 'Dream' Gotterdammerung).

This 1936 set under Beecham can be compared to the recording of the last two scenes of Act 2 under Furtwangler, also with Leider at Covent Garden, two years later. The Furwangler version was recorded off-air from a BBC broadcast by a professional recording outfit at the instigation of some die-hard English admirers of Leider who suspected (rightly as it turned out) that the 1938 season would be Leider's last.

One surprise when comparing the two versions (the Beecham being rather longer, of course, containing a chunk of Act 1 and the whole of Act 2) is that the conducting is remarkable similar. Furtwangler perhaps is rather more lyrical and Beecham has a little more punch, but both are thrilling. The main difference lies in the superior balance in the Furtwangler version, which gives equal prominence to both orchestra and singers. It is also fair to say that the performance of the singers is if anything even more impressive here than for Beecham and the Furtwangler is certainly the better of the two overall.

The Guild set also contains the Leider studio version of the Immolation Scene and studio excerpts of the Walkure and Seigfried Brunhildas. Welcome though these are, they preserve Leider's lovely voice but not much of her interpretation, which was greatly superior to anything Flagstad, for all her glorious voice, could approach. It is only the live performance that gives a clue to Leider's true genius.

Still, whatever the problems I would not wish to be without the Beecham performance. I just cannot recommend that anyone should buy the Guild version given the poor sound. Try and find a copy of the Preiser instead.

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