Karl Muck was undoubtedly one of the greatest Wagnerian conductors of all time: the precious few records he made towards the end of his career prove as much. Luckily for us, the record moguls of the day must have realized that his reading of Parsifal, which he conducted at Bayreuth from 1901 to 1930, was something that should be preserved for posterity. Once electrical recording arrived, Columbia and HMV vied with each other to record Muck's interpretation at Bayreuth (as AS tells us in his excellent notes). Columbia won the battle, and took a team to Bayreuth in 1927. The opera house during performance proved retractable at that stage, so sessions were set up between performances with the results heard here on the first CD. Unfortunately, soloists, except for the Flowermaidens, are missing from these extracts but that hardly matters. Muck proves the depth and beauty of his reading. Even under Knappertsbusch or Karajan, the Transformation and Grail scenes in Act I have not sounded so intense and searing, with a superb balance achieved between the orchestra's various sections. The rich yet never overbearing sonority, the swift yet contained tempos are evidence enough of Muck's long and fruitful experience in the work. This is grand, tragic music-making that would be hard to equal today.
But Muck's account of almost the whole of Act 3 (the opening of the first scene is omitted perhaps to avoid engaging a Kundry) is even more valuable. The old set of 78s has long been a treasured possession of mine, never quite superseded by a slightly dim Preiser LP, so it is good to have this new honest Pearl transfer, even if this too has some drawbacks, listed below. Muck by 1928 had been captured by HMV, still Columbia's rivals rather than the ally they were later to become. The recording was made in Berlin, not Bayreuth, but with soloists who were familiar to Muck from Bayreuth. The results remain revelatory. What one marvels at here is the seamless movement, the unexaggerated but moving climaxes, the translucent sonority, the refinement of detail all leading to the inspired urgency of the choral pleadings in the second Grail scene. Muck proves conclusively how much more eloquent Wagner sounds when ''voluptuous lingering'' (Robin Holloway's phrase) is avoided. The Berlin State Opera Orchestra play superbly for their mentor.
The other memorable aspect of this performance is Pistor's gentle, sensitive, profound Parsifal. The role has never been sung with such expressive subtlety, such moving accents, such sweet, firm tone. Phrase after phrase is ideally adumbrated. Ludwig Hofmann's Gurnemanz, noble and sonorous though it is sung, isn't quite as personal in utterance as, say, Weber's or Hotter's in later sets, but it has that rocklike steadiness typical of its time. Brongeest's inward, later tortured Amfortas is also delivered with perfectly formed tone. All three sing with a Lieder artist's care for the text.
Pleased as I am to have this reissue, had EMI undertaken the task we would have had click-free, almost silent surfaces without any loss of immediacy (the original matrices of Act 3 exist). And Pearl are once again careless about detail and documentation. There seems no reason for the long break between tracks 2 and 3 on the second CD as there's virtually no music missing; and there is no seventh track on the first disc, though one is listed. The wrong orchestra is given for the gentle, easygoing, fresh account of the Siegfried Idyll. However, as EMI are unlikely to duplicate this issue, Wagnerians should take advantage of it, for it chronicles historical performances of great significance.AB