Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer:  Andrew Rose

Downloads include full scores of each scene  

CAST

Wotan Ferdinand Frantz

Donner Alfred Poell

Froh Lorenz Fehenberger

Loge Wolfgang Windgassen

Fricka Ira Malaniuk

Freia Elisabeth Grümmer

Erda Ruth Siewert

Alberich Gustav Neidlinger

Mime Julius Patzak

Fasolt Josef Greindl

Fafner Gottlob Frick

Woglinde Sena Jurinac

Wellgunde Magda Gabory

Flosshilde Hilde Rössl-Majdan

Short Notes  

Recorded for Italian radio broadcasts in 1953, this is the first of the four operas which make up what is closest to being Furtwängler's only 'studio' Ring Cycle, and one of only two complete Rings known to exist in recordings under his baton.

Upon it's LP issue in 1972, the Gramophone critic stated that their release was "the gramophone event of the century" - in opening a review which lasts almost as long as the entire cycle!

Yet it has always been hampered by below-par sound quality, something which has, astonishingly, been made worse on certain later CD reissues. This release changes all that, offering the first of the four operas in a clarity and vividness of sound never before imagined or obtained. An absolutely essential listen.

Notes on the transfers:

There are two full recordings of Wagner's Ring cycle conducted by Furtwängler, but neither is the full studio recording planned by EMI to begin in 1954 and left incomplete by the conductor's death at the age of 68 on 30th November of that year. There is a 1950 recording of his La Scala cycle, and this, a series of recordings made for broadcast on Italian radio (RAI) across ten sessions in October and November 1953 in front of a very quiet invited audience. The final broadcasts were cut from both these recordings and taped rehearsal sessions, as chosen by Furtwängler and the RAI engineers the day after recording.

The recordings were broadcast a short time after but were not commercially issued until the early 1970s on LP by EMI. Generally the sound quality I've been able to achieve from these recordings - after some considerable difficulties - has been remarkably fine. However the first Scene is of a dimmer sound quality than the rest of the opera, for reasons which are probably now lost to time. Thereafter, despite some variable and occasionally noticeable (but not intrusive) hiss, the sound is generally excellent for a radio recording of this era.

[I note that a remastered issue of this recording appeared on another label in around 2005 which has garnered some comment and praise from reviewers at Amazon.com. Gramophone, in 2005, referred to it have been transferred "...at a higher volume, and exchanges detail for warmth. It remains adequate radiophonic mono...". I was able to obtain an excerpt of this transfer for comparison when preparing this edition and it really is rather dismal - with extensive peak compression (hence the "higher volume" and a highly restricted frequency range remeniscent of AM radio. In every respect what I heard was a major sonic downgrade from the original EMI vinyl release, and I'm surprised at the esteem in which it has been held by some listeners.]

Review of original LP issue (excerpt!)  

"I won't mince words, but say straightaway that the Ring is the supreme large-scale musical achievement of the human mind, that Furtwangler has been the greatest conductor of the work over the last sixty years, and that this HMV box of records is therefore the gramophone event of the century.

Before any gramophile seizes pen and paper to write a strongly-worded protest against this categorical statement, I'd better stress that the phrase I've used is "gramophone event". The gramophone achievement of the century, surely, is the Decca recording of Wagner's work, in which Georg Solti, John Culshaw and Gordon Parry collaborated-the first-ever and truly magnificent gramophonic presentation of the Ring. The DGG recording, master-minded by Herbert von Karajan, came second of course; this month it's issued as a complete entity (as the Decca has been), and in my opinion, despite its many virtues (referred to below), it does in fact come second to the Decca. [The cast details can be found on page 552-Ed.] Actually, the Furtwangler Ring isn't a gramophonic achievement at all, but a radio achievement-except that, since it happened, certain people in EMI have moved heaven and earth to make it permanently available on disc to music-lovers. The whole story is fascinating in itself, so I'd better begin with it.

In 1952, David Bicknell, then the Manager of EMI's International Artists Department, renewed Furtwangler's exclusive contract with the company, and agreed with him that their main task should be to collaborate in a complete recording of the Ring with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. So EMI hoped to be first in the field with a complete recording of the Ring, and would have been, but for fate. They began with Die Walkiire, which was completed in October 1954, was first issued in September 1955 on HMV mono ALP125761, later reissued as HQM1019-23 (4/66) and only recently deleted. Furtwdngler was so pleased with it that he said, "Now let us finish the other operas as soon as possible". But eight weeks later he died ; and it seemed that his incomparable interpretation of the whole Ring had gone with him to the grave -or rather, was evaporating into the cosmos, in soundwaves progressing to an infinite faintness.

However, the previous year, Furtwangler had recorded the Ring complete for Rome Radio; and after his death, it was realised that this radio tape was the only preserved recording of his interpretation of the whole work. Immediately, negotiations began between EMI and Radio Italiana, with a view to issuing the recording commercially; but nothing came of it, since two of the singers on the tape had exclusive contracts with a rival record company, which refused to waive them. It was only in the late nineteen-sixties, after continued pleas from Furtwangler's widow and the formation of the Wilhelm Furtwangler Society (founded in 1967, partly to recover every existing recording made by him), that negotiations began again and resulted in an agreement that EMI should issue the performance on disc-the last major project of David Bicknell before his retirement last year. The discs have been made from copy tapes prepared in Italy from the metal positives held in RAI Archives; and since the sound, after so many years, was of variable quality, the EMI engineers have had to work hard to produce a uniform and satisfactory sound. I can only congratulate them on the result, which is remarkably vivid for a recording made in 1953...

...The superlative quality of Furtwangler's interpretation resides in his awareness that the Ring is not in any sense a beautiful and sophisticated work, a la Karajan, or a frenetically violent work, a la Solti, but a stark, heavy, brooding work, a profound tragedy set in a primitive world of ancient Teutonic gods and heroes, to whom every action and event is of the utmost existential importance-a la Wagner. And it should not be thought that this awareness translates itself into an interpretation purely by means of adopting slower tempi: for instance, Furtwangler's prelude to Act 2 of Die Walkiire is taken at the same driving speed as that of Solti, but it is even more gripping because of the weight he brings to bear on the music at that tempo. But the most remarkable thing about Furtwangler's interpretation is the way he brings out the meaning of every detail of the score, a good example being the very first scene of Das Rheingold. Here the tempo is actually slower than those of Solti and Karajan, and it serves to give a lovely lazy lilt to the music of the Rhinemaidens (who after all are supposed to be basking happily in the pleasurable world of unspoilt nature) ; but one realises the full significance of this tempo when the gold lights up and the Rhinemaidens begin their ecstatic song in praise of it, since the flashing scales of semiquavers on the violins make their full impact as the kind of watery vibration Wagner meant them to be, whereas with Solti and Karajan they flash by so quickly that they become no more than a general wash of sound. In purely musical terms, violins cannot properly articulate staccato semiquavers above a certain speed. Again, when Alberich begins climbing up from the lower depths of the Rhine, and gets in a temper because the water sets him sneezing, Furtwángler gives full weight to the vicious little phrase of four descending demisemiquavers and two ascending semiquavers which gives us our first glimpse of Alberich's sadistic nature, and is to return when he starts bullying Mime in the third scene; but with both Solti and Karajan, the tempo is too quick to allow this phrase to register at all clearly.

One could go on giving examples throughout the whole score, but this would be to ignore a more positive and indefinable quality of Furtwangler's interpretation-his ability to make the music surge, or seethe, or melt, so that one has left the world of semiquavers altogether, and is swept up in a great spiritual experience. Furtwdngler himself said: "However vast the scope of a Wagner opera may be, it is still made up of countless individual strands, and only the correct tempo can tie these together. The real task of the conductor-especially in Wagner-is to produce a consistent tempo. There are never 'segments' or rough divisions; everything flows smoothly. Wagner once called himself 'the master of transition', and rightly so". This performance of the Ring is a superb practical demonstration of Furtwangler's theory, since the tempi adopted are so exactly right as to allow every strand of the music to express itself to the full. One has heard the Ring many times, and one feels that one knows just what to expect from the many great peaks of the score; but hearing them again under Furtwdngler-the Descent to Nibelheim, the love-duet in Act 1 of Die Walkiire, the Ride of the Valkyries, Siegfried's forging of the sword, Siegfried's Funeral March, and the closing scene of Giitterdammerung-one realises that there is far more in this music than one has got out of it since one last heard Furtwangler..."

D. C. The Gramophone, September 1972 - Full review here 

Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer:  Andrew Rose  

    RAVEL Piano Concerto in G major

    Symphony Orchestra

    conducted by Pedro de Freitas Branco

    recording supervised by Maurice Ravel

    NB. Ravel has regularly but mistakenly been billed as the conductor of this recording

    Recorded 14 April 1932, issued as Columbia LFX 257-259

    MILHAUD Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 127

    Symphony Orchestra

    conducted by Darius Milhaud

    Recorded 5 April 1935, issued as Columbia LFX 375-6

    MILHAUD Automne, Op. 115 - 2: Alfama

    MILHAUD Saudades do Brazil, Op. 67 - 12: Paysandu 

    Recorded 5 April 1935, issued as Columbia LFX 375

    DEBUSSY Two Arabesques

    Recorded 10 July 1930, issued as Columbia LF 55

    DEBUSSY Estampes - 3. Jardins sous la pluie

    Recorded 12 November 1929, issued as Columbia LFX 24

    DEBUSSY La Plus que Lente (valse)

    Recorded 6 November 1929, issued as Columbia LFX 24

    RAVEL Piano Concerto in G major

    Orchestre de la Socitété des Concerts du Conservatoire

    conducted by George Tzipine

    Recorded 12 June 1952, issued as Columbia FCX 169

    Marguerite Long piano

Short Notes  

Marguerite Long's career traverses those of some of the greatest French composers - intimate in her professional life with the likes of Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Milhaud and so many others, she not only commands an authority on their interpretation, she was for several the inspiration for some of their greatest works.

A case in point, presented here, is Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, written for Long and recorded twice by her - once under Ravel's supervision in 1932, and again 20 years later for LP. Both recordings are here.

Long also inspired Milhaud's 1st Piano Concerto, and their recording also appears here - together with solo works by both Milhaud and her other great friend, Debussy. Wonderful stuff from start to finish!

Recording Notes

The first recording of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, allegedly with the composer conducting, took place exactly three months after its première in Paris - which he did conduct, and where most of the rest of the program had been conducted by de Freitas Branco. It is the latter who conducts the 1932 recording here, despite continued and repeated billing both by HMV and EMI, and more recently other labels, of Ravel himself.

It does seem far more likely that, by contrast, it is the composer who conducts Milhaud's Piano Concerto here - as with Ravel, and also Debussy, Fauré and other French composers of the era, Marguerite Long had a close and fruitful working relationship with Darius Milhaud.

Naturally the 1920s and 30s recordings frequently betray their age sonically, though often - particularly in the Milhaud - we are treated to clear upper frequencies, particularly in the brass, which offer a brightness which, if occasionally a little harsh, suggests a far more recent recording. The Ravel concerto - in its 1932 recording - suffered considerable swish, particularly during the quieter second movement, and a lot of effort has been expended in trying to reduce or eliminate this.

Naturally the 1952 recording of the concerto is of considerably higher fidelity - it was included here both to bring together Long's only studio recordings of the concerto, and also to offer the chance to contrast and compare the two quite different interpretations by someone who perhaps knew the both work and its composer's intentions better than any other pianist.