From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Subject: Re: Favorite Ring recordings
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 16:21:30 GMT

In article <BxJ4JK.EFC@cmcl2.nyu.edu> tony@cns.nyu.edu writes:

>I must say I am puzzled by those in this thread who are trying to put the
>Bohm Bayreuth Ring over the Solti one. 

Me too.

>To me, Bohm loses on almost all counts
>to Solti -- his singers are no better and sometimes worse (Adam's Wotan I
>find so dry-voiced as to be unacceptable, I'd rather have Hotter's wobble
>and brains any day). His orchestra is sometime sloppy and his conducting
>tends to be rhythmically rather slack, a critical failing in the Ring. The
>sound is acceptable, but not distinguished.

I second everything Tony said.  To hear such praise for the Boehm is
very puzzling.  Mostly (I'm not saying it's true in the present cases)
I've found that people who prefer the Boehm do so for one of two
knee-jerk reactions:
(a) Faster is better in Wagner
(b) Live is better than studio
Both of which, you'll notice, substitude a priori judgements for actual
use of one's ears.  In fact, faster is not necessarily better in Wagner;
long as the operas are, they seem longer yet if they are simply "played
through" without appropriate shaping and building of each moment into a
seamless long line.  This is where Boehm falls down, to my ears -- he
doesn't balance or blend the orchestra at all; there's no musical sense
to it.

The strongest members of his cast are Nilsson and Windgassen, who are
also on Solti's and very similar in both; no grounds for preference
there.  Boehm has some real weaknesses elsewhere (Adam's dry Wotan,
Rysanek's hopelessly wrong Sieglinde, Moedl's aged Waltraute,
Dvorakova's matronly Gutrune), whereas Solti's only real lemon is
Gerhard Stolze's hysterical Mime.

>For me, Solti remains the standard in this music. 

Yes.  I can imagine better conducting at some points (and better singing
too), but no other recorded cycle does better overall.

>The Furtwangler set must
>be heard, but it has too many defects in recording and execution to be an
>acceptable first choice. The Karajan set has some fine things in it, but
>does not surpass Solti's for me in any important respect. I also enjoy much
>of Levine's performance, and especially Morris' Wotan; the Met Orchestra is
>the only one to rival Vienna in this music, and the recording is excellent.
>I have not heard enough of the Haitink to form an opinion, or the Knapperts-
>busch or Krauss sets.

I like much of the Levine in bits and pieces, and the Rheingold
throughout.  Haitink doesn't do much for me.  The closest rival to Solti
in my Ring affections is Janowski, and that mostly for his conducting
and the Dresden State Orchestra's fabulous playing -- and some
interesting casting in the middle 2 operas.  (Yvonne Minton is my
favorite Fricka, and Siegfried Jerusalem nearly my favorite Siegmund.)
The first 2 segements of Karajan's cycle are also treasurable, but he
didn't solve the Siegfried or Bruennhilde problems later on.

>I find myself going back to Solti again and again, especially for
>Gotterdammerung, which I still find to be an astonishing unified triumph of
>the art of performance and the art of recording.

Right once again.  Opera recordings don't come much finer than this one.

Jon Alan Conrad
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical