These superlative performances make one regret all the more that Beecham never recorded a Wagner opera complete in the studio: all we are left with are these maddeningly brief examples of his undoubted prowess in this field, and the 'unofficial' broadcast recordings taken from Covent Garden performances. He was a lifelong Wagnerian following his pilgrimage to Bayreuth in 1899 and conducted his first Wagner opera (Der fliegende Hollander) when he was 31. He then went on to direct all the major works, Parsifal excepted, several times.
The greatest 'might have been' would be a complete Covent Garden Die Meistersinger of 1936, when a superb cast had been assembled: given that the recording facilities were there to make the sides included here, one wonders why the rest of the opera wasn't also committed to disc. A month after those excerpts were taken live Beecham went into the studio to record his masterly account of the Prelude to Act 1, which has all the flair, elan and warmth lacking in Abbado's 1993 live performance from Berlin for DG (5/94)—and, be it said, a more truthful sound. Here the whole panoply of the score is set expectantly before us. The Royal Opera House Chorus sing well, though not exceptionally so. Ralf, a compact, musical tenor then near the beginning of a distinguished career in Wagner, sings a pleasing, poetic Prize song, for which he duly receives the crown from Lemnitz's nonpareil of an Eva, perfect trill and all.
Nine days after the Meistersinger extracts were made, EMI were back at Covent Garden for Gotterdammerung. All that officially resulted were two solos, in which we hear Weber as an implacable then fiendishly celebratory Hagen. At this stage in his career Weber was an ideal interpreter of the role. The rest of the items are performances recorded in EMI's Abbey Road No. 1 Studio. They demonstrate Beecham's ability to inject zestful conviction into pre-Ring Wagner without ever overblowing the sound, as so often happens today. These readings also confirm the virtuoso calibre of his pre-war LPO, who play with a precision and character that leap from the loudspeakers with amazing freshness and vitality in these faultless transfers, not a 78rpm surface to be heard, a tribute to Mike Dutton's skills in using the Cedar system to best advantage. A rewarding reissue on all counts.'