German Opera Wagner: Die Meistersinger. Donath, Hesse, Adam,
Kollo, Schreier, et al., Dresden State Opera and Leipzig Radio Chorus, State
Opera Orch., von Karajan. Angel SEL 3776, 5 discs, $29.90.
The latest von Karajan Wagner is on Angel, instead of DGG, but the qualities that have distinguished his earlier recordings carry over to the new label and new locale-Dresden, in East Germany. My long-time Wagnerian ear says Von Karajan is it for our time in terms of Wagner in the living room. He has it exactly right.
Recorded Wagner hasn't done too well in these years since the great days of Flagstad and Melchoir in the 1930's.
Individual great performances, stars galore, brilliant conductors, encouraging experiments in stereo sound-but very seldom a real, all-over show, a unified, all-of-a-piece performance, with one aim: the opera itself. Of all the operas, Meistersinger most needs it.
And here, at last, it gets it. Fantastically good, I say.
It is indeed a show, full of enthusiasm, tight, economical, dramatic, without an inch of excess fat and yet relaxed where it ought to be. The voices, beautifully recorded, are matched to perfection in both singing style and ability, down to the smallest parts; it is a true German performance, even if the lead lady is from Texas. She sings the purest German-Austrian style.
The pair of tenors, René Kollo and Peter Schreier, are matched like a pair of the Queen's gray horses, the bevy of bassos, who are the imposing Master Singers, are like a row of solid Germanic peasantry, every one of them good--even Beckmesser, the dupe and foil, who was born Welch. And the chorus, representing the lively Apprentices, etc., is astonishingly full of verve and excitement, on its feet every second.
The near-impeccable orchestra fills out the sonic picture, full of feeling, yet never too tense and always plastic.
This is no stage-distance recording--far from it. The singers are quite close, though blending musically with the orchestra and chorus. They perform out of individual half-isolation booths, each with his mic, and they are unobtrusively exact in their spacing around a stereo half-circle. To tell the truth, though I agree that for recorded Wagner the voices must take on a new sonic relationship to the musical surround, and not that of the stage, I felt that this time they are a trace too close and too loud. In the long pull-10 sides-they tire the ear; and yet the recording is so big, so clear, so good in its ambience, that you are bound to want full volume.
Also, I detect a bit of "cavity" sound in each, which is undoubtedly the space in the isolation booth. Minor quibble.
The big booklet gives complete, easily followed text and translation, and it is worth following, straight through the 10 sides. (Though if you are wise you will suffer a few moments, hours, maybe days, of silence between acts. At such close range, there's just too much to take in). You will never really catch on to Wagner until you can follow the immediate drift of the running conversation which is the main operatic content. In Meistersinger, note well, it moves very fast and colloquially; whereas in the other operas the pace of discussion is unendurably slow, until you adjust your own musical pace to fit it.
Very nice on four-channel set-ups, with almost any kind of decoder. Mine was the E-V, with two power amps.
Right in the big opera house, which is all around you. Best seat in the house? Of course! You are on the stage itself, at the conductor's podium-or where he would be if the orchestra, too, were on the stage and all around you. That's the way it sounds and that's exactly as things should be. For records, I mean.
Performance: A, Sound: A-
The Comic Beethoven. Anneliese Rothenberger, Nicolai Gedda, Walter Berry; Munich Convivium Musicum; Consortium Musicum, Chorus Bavarian State Opera, Vienna Akademie Kammerchor, et al. Seraphim S 60180, stereo, $2.98.
A slightly delayed holdover from the Beethoven Year (1970), this is a very pleasant and well put together disc of Beethoven trifles, vocal and instrumental, not a one of which, however, does not display Beethoven's professional sense of craftsmanship. The mixture is tastefully distributed between songs, with three different soloists, instrumental dances of three kinds--Country Dances, German Dances and Viennese Dances-and an occasional choral intrusion. Several of Beethoven's more famous canons are included, notably the one about Mälzel's metronome invention, which was incorporated into the Symphony No. 8. Another familiar symphony, the "Eroica," is represented in the Country Dance (or Contra Dance) in E flat, original for the familiar tune in the Symphony's last movement.
Most of the singing is spirited and lively, in broadly relished dialect Austrian, especially the excellent basso songs with Walter Berry. Anneliese Rothenberger, a seasoned pro, almost splits herself, however, trying to sing a Tyrolese yodel song straight, minus falsetto! She makes it, but Swiss and Tyrolese yodelers would turn gray at the sound. Some of the songs are evidently from that new mass of "WoO" (works without opus) numbers that were resurrected at the time of the Beethoven Year for recording, the ones with the higher (i.e. later-catalogued) WoO numbers. Others fit in between the familiar works, as late as 1819, when the Viennese Dances were composed. All the ribald texts are included, with translations.
Performances: B+, Sound: B
Here is a brief report on some CBS SQ records which were also used in the above tests.
Barbra Streisand in extracts from Funny Gird SQ 30992.
This is taken from the original soundtrack and has some interesting effects particularly in the duet between Barbra and Omar Sharif. It puts you right in the middle of the front row!
Ray Stevens' Greatest Hits, ZQ 30770. Here the listener finds himself between the violinist and the orchestra-at least that's the way it sounded in my room. Exciting, though.
Al Kooper, Steve Stills, Mike Bloomfield: Super Session, CQ 30991.
Now you are right in the middle of the players-you can almost reach out and touch that bass player. Excellent recording.
Morton Subotnick with the Buchla Synthesizer in Touch, MQ 31019.
Mort says "to live without a quadraphonic set-up may be possible but is not advisable." I won't comment on that but unquestionably this medium is ideal for electronic music. Might be even better with four discrete channels, but the sense of location is pretty good anyway.
Bernstein and the LSO: Verdi Requiem, M2Q 30060. The singers, Martina Arroyo, Josephine Veasey, Placido Domingo, and Ruggero Raimondi, are not recorded too well. Just a slight touch of edginess easily removed by a filter, but the orchestral climaxes are tremendous with a most realistic ambience.
Ray Conniff: Love Story, CQ 30498. A very pleasant surround sound, this one. Nicely recorded.
Finally, a word of praise to Dr. Takeo Shiga of the Nippon Columbia Company who, I believe, was responsible for the UMX demonstration record.
The selections ranged from electronic to chamber music and were beautifully recorded. So, incidentally, is the Sansui record which features part of the Dvorak New World Symphony by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. There is a very real sense of actually being there in the concert hall.
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(Audio magazine, Oct. 1970; Edward Tatnall Canby)
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