From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: The best Tristan und Isolde
Date: 12 Nov 92 21:16:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: news.BxMGF1.F59
Organization: University of Delaware

In article <BxMBEp.6pM@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> smitra@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Sami Mitra) writes:

>	Unlike some of the other recordings of Wagner's late works I 
>don't believe there is any recording of Tristan that is more or less
>"faultless" in all regards. 

I heartily agree.

>	The 1972 Karajan recording. I like his conducting, some of my
>friends don't. But Vickers alone takes it to a different plane
>altogether. He, for me, IS Tristan. Dernesch isn't quite at the same
>intensity unfortunately.

More to the point, she is in vocal trouble (a few years later she took
time out to realign herself as a mezzo).

>	The famed Furtwaengler/Legge recording. Furtwaengler as usual
>has all his cylinders firing. I may get lynched for saying this, but
>I prefer Suthaus' Tristan to Flagstad's Isolde. She is never bad, but
>one has to hear her earlier recordings (see below) to see how much
>better she had been! I wonder why Legge decided to go mono on this.
>At this time stereo recording was in place, and this was a studio
>recording after all. I have no problem with the technical quality of the
>recording itself, however.

You're not the first to prefer Suthaus to Flagstad, and he certainly
does sound better and better as the years go by.  She still sounds fine
to me here, though I agree she was superhuman earlier.  I'm puzzled by
your reference to stereo, though.  Wasn't this made in 1952?  Stereo
wasn't commercially offered till 1958, and not attempted in recording
much before that (though Decca got in a few early efforts around 1955).
But in any case EMI has guessed wrong about every new recording
development (they thought the LP, stereo, and CD were passing fads and
were late getting going on them; on the other hand they made a heavy
early commitment to quad); in the trade they say EMI stands for Every
Mistake Imaginable.

>	Alas, if only the sound were better on the 36/37 Beecham/Reiner
>recording. This then would be my clear first choice. The voices of the
>legends are caught pretty well though. The orchestral moments have to
>sometimes be aided by your imagination!

Try to get a Flagstad/Melchior TRISTAN if you can; THAT's how the music
should be sung.  I have the one the Met put out in the 70s, though I
understand there are better performances available.

>	I am sure some of my fellow netters will have nice things to say
>of the Bohm and Kleiber recordings too. 

The Boehm on DG is probably the "safest" choice; you have Nilsson and
Windgassen, the best I&T of those years and very good by any standards,
live at Bayreuth.  Christa Ludwig, Eberhard Waechter, and Martti Talvela
are tops too.  I hesitate only over Boehm; it's clear and incisive and
fast, but it doesn't get that distinctive "Tristan spell" going.  No
magic.

For Carlos Kleiber, I prefer his live Bayreuth recording on Legendary
Recordings, from 1976 and in quite good stereo (radio broadcast, I
assume).  He's a wizard with the orchestral score, and his singers outdo
themselves: Caterina Ligendza at her best, and Spas Wenkoff, the only
outstanding Tristan in recent times.  They're pretty amazing.  Plus I
love Yvonne Minton's Brangaene.  By comparison, Kleiber's DG recording
gets overly delicate.

>	Finally, if you were to have a Tristan recorded today ...
>  by let's say
>... Levine or Sinopoli...who would you want your lead singers to be?	

No Sinopoli for me here, please.  Levine conceivably, though I'd prefer
Kleiber again, or maybe Abbado.  For years Solti was wanting to do it
with Jessye Norman and Placido Domingo, but now it looks like that won't
happen because Jessye has opted out.  I guess I would like to have
Domingo (if he'll really settle down and *learn* it), odd German and
all, just because I want to hear it sound beautiful once in my lifetime,
and his voice now sits in the right tessitura for it.  For Isolde, I
nominate Nadine Secunde, who will undertake it for the first time in
1994, and who I predict will be spectacular in the part.  For Brangaene,
I would love to hear how it sounds with a high soprano, as Wagner wanted
(his first B. also sang Queen of the Night!), and so I nominate the
inevitable Cheryl Studer (she'll never be an Isolde herself).  For
Kurwenal we need a good solid high baritone, for which I suggest a
Thomas: Hampson or Allen.  And I can't think of a better Marke than Kurt
Moll.  

Jon Alan Conrad