These reissues are well timed. Astrid Varnay's Brunnhilde is one of the most exciting aspects of the 1953 Bayreuth Ring, conducted by Clemens Krauss, and recently released on CD (Laudis/ Music Discount Centre LCD3 4002/05, 6/88). These performances, recorded between 1955 and 1959, remind us no less strongly that she was one of the most remarkable Wagnerian singers of that time.
For collectors who already have the Krauss Ring interest will centre on the Tristan extracts. Most notable is a Liebestod of superbly controlled intensity. In the Narrative and Curse the exultant, passionate power of Varnay's singing exposes one hint of mannerism—a tendency to press too hard on certain syllables, and to seem, in consequence, an Isolde more unyielding than volatile. The difficulty a great Wagnerian can have in scaling her voice down is most noticeable in the first of the Wesendonk Lzeder: Varnay is best in the rapt, inner intensity of No. 3, ''Im Treibhaus''. Such inner intensity is also abundant in the long extract from Act 2 of Tristan. Windgassen is a fairly stolid Tristan—singing the pan 'cold' in the studio at relatively slow tempos may be the reason—but the impact of the whole is still powerful and moving, marred only by the tacking on of the music that ends the act to make a 'proper' cadence.
Two of The Ring extracts are also afflicted with these tame harmonic closures when fade-outs on what Wagner actually wrote would have been preferable. Yet such minor irritations are tolerable when the singing is so authoritative and thrilling. For the same reason it matters little that the recording focuses on the voices to an extent that can leave vital orchestral detail distinctly sketchy. Windgassen proves a sterling partner, stronger-voiced than in his other Ring recordings, but it is Varnay's grandly-phrased account of the closing scene from Gotterdammerung that wins this disc the strongest recommendation especially to those who are not thinking of buying the complete Krauss Ring.'