Wagner: The Complete Karl Muck Parsifal Recordings, Orchestral Suite, etc / Muck

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Description of Wagner: The Complete Karl Muck Parsifal Recordings, Orchestral Suite, etc / Muck

The great Wagnerian soprano Frida Leider, whose voice is not heard on these recordings, encountered Muck in his later years at Bayreuth and was struck by the slowness of his tempos in Parsifal. Indeed, they are slow: the Act I prelude takes 15:55 by the clock and seems even longer, yet the effect is sublime. Muck sustains the prelude as if on a single breath, just at the point where the pulse almost disappears; the music seems to arise out of silence and darkness to become light and spirit. This is just what Wagner intended. The Act III excerpts, which feature tenor Gotthelf Pistor as Parsifal and bass Ludwig Hofmann as Gurnemanz, are also superb. Pistor's is quite a fine voice--he was a real heldentenor--and the drama is palpable. But the greatest treasure here is the playing of the State Opera orchestra. Muck had been its chief conductor for 20 years, from 1892, and the chemistry between him and his erstwhile colleagues is particularly remarkable. They are majestic in the "Good Friday Spell," and they bring enormous grandeur and radiance to the closing pages of the opera. What a superb band this was!

The segments recorded in Bayreuth are only a little less enchanting, largely because the chorus preparation leaves a lot to be desired (the chromaticism in Wagner's writing was difficult then, and still is). But we hear the original Bayreuth bells in the Act I transformation music (they were carried up to Berlin for the Act III processional music as well); cast to Wagner's own specifications, and melted down for the German war effort in 1940, they are truly a "voice" from the past.

The two discs are superbly laid out, and include, in addition to the Muck material, a four-part orchestral suite from Parsifal conducted by Alfred Hertz and recorded in 1913 with the Berlin Philharmonic, as well as the "Good Friday Spell" played by the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra under the direction of Siegfried Wagner, the composer's son, recorded in 1927. The transfers by Mark Obert-Thorn are the best yet of these historic recordings. --Ted Libbey

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