Recorded 1953  

Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer:  Andrew Rose

Siegfried Ludwig Suthaus

Wanderer Ferdinand Frantz

Mime Julius Patzak

Alberich Alois Pernerstorfer

Fafner Josef Greindl

Woodbird Rita Streich

Brünnhilde Martha Mödl

Erda Margarete Klose

Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma della RAI

conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler

Downloads include full scores of each act

Short Notes  

This week sees Pristine's astounding 32-bit XR remastering of Wilhelm Furtwängler's 1953 Ring Cycle reach the third of its four parts with his brilliant Siegfried - one of the most challenging of Wagner's operas.

Recorded live in RAI's main studio auditorium in Rome, an act at a time over three nights in 1953, Furtwängler's mastery of Wagner is clear throughout - no wonder the original LP release of this series was hailed as "the gramophone event of the century" by Deryck Cooke.

Available as four CDs, MP3s, or in continuous, uninterrupted 24-bit and 16-bit FLAC downloads, this is a recording no Wagnerian nor Furtwängler-lover can afford to be without.

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.

In working on these new Pristine 32-bit XR remasterings I've made a few interesting discoveries and come to a few conclusions. First of all, the recordings were most probably originally recorded onto tape at 30 inches per second, with each reel running for about 15 minutes. The recordings were made an act at a time, and where necessary rehearsal material was cut into the live performance recording prior to broadcast a few days later.

The final masters were preserved as vinyl discs (with metal masters), each side representing a tape reel - at this time it was common to preserve radio broadcasts on disc; the medium was both proven and much less space-hungry than tape, which was expensive and could of course be erased and re-used. Thus when EMI mastered the original 1972 LP release, they worked from tape dubs of new vinyl pressings made from RAI's metal masters, and it is likely that these same tape dubs served for future releases, both on vinyl and CD. Certainly there is more than enough evidence of vinyl origins in EMI's 1990 CDs which matches flaws on their 1972 LPs - swish, clicks etc. The bizarre difference between the two is in badly-dubbed applause at the end of each act, present on the CDs but absent on the LPs. Bizarre indeed - the same canned applause was used at the ends of both Acts Two and Three in the present recording! It also appears in the same form in the Gebhardt CD reissue but is absent here.
Andrew Rose

Review LP issue (excerpts), 1972, The Gramophone:

"Solti has gone on record as saying that although Furtwängler was, of course, a tremendous conductor of Wagner, a different, more dynamic approach is necessary today; but it is a mistake to equate dynamism with speed. For example, Solti begins the storm-music which opens Die Walküre at a tremendous pace (before slowing down, surprisingly, to a much steadier tempo), but the result is that he loses the dynamism of the pounding crotchets in the bass, which, when taken at a less hectic tempo, as by Furtwangler, create a much greater dramatic intensity owing to the fact that every one of them can be heard making its separate mark. Other examples are the swift quavers in two-four time which Wagner used to portray Siegfried's anger with Mime-at Solti's very fast tempo they have great impetuosity but no real weight- and the prelude to Act 3 of Siegfried where, in spite of the general atmosphere of excitement, the figure portraying the gallop of Wotan's horse becomes merely an agitated accompaniment of no particular significance. And sometimes the tempo is too fast to allow the singers to shape their vocal lines properly, as at the end of the love-duet for Siegfried and Brünnhilde in the Prelude to Götterdämmerung, where Brünnhilde's descending phrase to the words "Heil, strahlendes Leben! Heil, siegendes Licht!" becomes a kind of glissando rather than a sequence of eight separate notes. Indeed, Solti rarely tries to accommodate the awkward passages for the singers, as both Furtwängler and Karajan nearly always do...

...Suthaus does make a really fine Siegfried, of the true heroic stamp, and is outstanding in his surprisingly delicate delivery of the phrases of the Woodbird in the narration leading up to his death, as well as in the agonised delivery of his dying apostrophe to Brünnhilde; but Windgassen, Thomas and Brilioth all bring out the youthful impetuosity of the character much more successfully. The baritones and basses are all outstanding: the name of Gottlob Frick is sufficient to guarantee the parts of Fafner the giant, and Hunding (and he is in just as fine form as on the Decca recording); Josef Greindl was the same kind of singer of his time, and he brings great power to the parts of Fasolt, Fafner the dragon, and Hagen ; and Alfred Poell makes a splendidly virile Donner, though he is perhaps too virile as the weak and vacillating Gunther. The Decca singers of these parts are equally impressive, especially Frick and Fischer-Dieskau, but those on the DGG recording are less so, with the exception of Thomas Stewart's Gunther, which is much more successful than his Wotan. Again, the name of Sena Jurinac is sufficient to guarantee the parts of Gutrune, the first Rhinemaiden, and the third Norn, and those of Elisabeth Grümmer and Rita Streich to guarantee the parts of Freia and the Woodbird respectively. Where Furtwängler really scores is with his two singers for the part of Erda: Ruth Siewert and Margarete Klose bring that atmosphere of deep mystery which Alec Robertson found lacking in the singers in the other two recordings, and Siewert brings to the Rheingold Erda's warning to Wotan a really blood-chilling note of menace..."

MP3 Sample  Act 1 - last 15 minutes    

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Recorded 1953 and 1955

Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer:  Andrew Rose

SIBELIUS Violin Concerto in D minor Op. 47

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra  

Nikolai Anossov   conductor

PAGANINI Violin Concerto No. 2 in B minor Op. 7

Moscow Youth Radio Symphony Orchestra  

Mark Pavelman   conductor

Julian Sitkovetsky   violin

Short Notes  

When Yehudi Menuhin hails another as "the greatest violinist I have ever heard", you may wonder to whom he refers. And if that violinist is one Julian Sitkovetsky (and it is), you may be wondering who he is referring to, why he's not a worldwide star, why you've never seen him play...

A brilliant Russian virtuoso, Sitkovetsky died in 1958 from lung cancer at the tragically young age of 32, with few recordings to his name and very few concert tours.

His son, the eminent conductor and violinist Dimitri Sitkovetsky, rated his father's Sibelius Concerto as among his very best - now in this new XR transfer you can hear for yourself what a loss his early demise was for music lovers everywhere.

Recording Notes

The Sibelius concerto recording by Julian Sitkovetsky came to me in a collection of discs transferred for Pristine Classical's streaming audio service by Dr. John Duffy, accompanied by another recording made by Anossov with the Czech Philharmonic. The name Sitkovetsky rang a bell - a few years ago we briefly issued a recent live recording made locally by his son, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, also a world-renowned violinist - and when I heard the performance here I determined to find out more.

Alas Julian Sitkovetsky's recordings are understandably few, and some of what have survived are of poor technical quality. Happily the two concerto recordings presented here were both of sufficient quality to make a full 32-bit XR remastering not only beneficial but highly worthwhile. Despite some surface noise at times on Dr. Duffy's Supraphon sides, much of which I've been able to alleviate, and some rather rough tone at times from the Moscow Youth Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sitkovetsky's playing shines throughout these recordings, and is a consistent joy to hear. 

Background Gary Lemco 

"Yehudi Menuhin spoke affectionately of Russian violinist Yulian Sitkovetsky (1925-1958) as "the greatest violinist I have ever heard." Vladimir Ashkenazy called Sitkovetsky "a legendary violinist with a unique and demonic talent." Besides having participated in and having won prizes at the All Soviet Union Young Performers Competition, the Prague Festival of Young Musicians, the Wieniawski Competition, and the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Violin Competition, Sitkovetsky premiered concertos by Rakov, Milman, and Albert Lehman. Unfortunately, Sitkovetsky's sweet art was denied Western audiences when lung cancer claimed him 23 February 1958. In an interview with his son, Dimitri, at Emory University, Atlanta, Dimitri claimed that his father excelled in the concertos by Sibelius and Glazounov, and was a ferociously dedicated chamber music advocate."

from Audiophile Audition

MP3 Sample  Sibelius Violin Concerto, 3rd movement 

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