COMPOSERS: Strauss/Wagner
LABELS: EMI Karajan Edition
WORKS: Ein Heldenleben; Der fliegende Holländer Overture; Prelude to Act I of Parsifal; Prelude to Act III of Parsifal
PERFORMER: Berlin PO/Herbert von Karajan
CATALOGUE NO: CDM 5 66108 2 ADD (1975)
No heady flights of fantasy beset Karajan’s elder statesman of a hero, grown from the roistering boy of his earlier DG version to take refined control of battlefield and bedroom. He has the ‘helpmate’ he deserves in BPO leader Michel Schwalbé’s technically brilliant, hardly capricious, violin solo. Opulent recording, handsomely remastered, takes off the chill; not the case with the icily cosmic Dutchman Overture. Strauss the conductor clocked in one of the fastest Parsifals in the Bayreuth records; Karajan’s mesmerising Prelude sets him at the other end of the scale. David Nice
Strauss/Wagner: Ein Heldenleben; Der fliegende Holländer Overture; Prelude to Act I of Parsifal; Prelude to Act III of Parsifal
No heady flights of fantasy beset Karajan’s elder statesman of a hero, grown from the roistering boy of his earlier DG version to take refined control of battlefield and bedroom. He has the ‘helpmate’ he deserves in BPO leader Michel Schwalbé’s technically brilliant, hardly capricious, violin solo. Opulent recording, handsomely remastered, takes off the chill; not the case with the icily cosmic Dutchman Overture. Strauss the conductor clocked in one of the fastest Parsifals in the Bayreuth records; Karajan’s mesmerising Prelude sets him at the other end of the scale. David Nice
Our rating
4
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:38 pm