This famous set, its reissue long awaited finally makes its re-entry into the catalogue. If I have to express some disappointment, that is because it has been preceded onto CD by two other recommendable sets from the same company (EMI—from Dresden, 7/88 and Bayreuth, 9/90), both conducted, in different drcumstances, by Karajan. Let me at once say that Kempe's interpretation remains his version's main glory, a wonderfully consistent, life-enhancing view of the piece, unexaggerated in tempo, all of a piece structurally—just as it used to be at Covent Garden. No other conductor on disc, not even Karajan, surpasses Kempe in the long view, in generosity of phrasing, subtlety or rubato, or in a sharp eye for instrumental detail. In particular, the whole of Act 3, from Eva's entrance, after all the heart of the work, sweeps forward with an inevitability of pulse and a depth of feeling that warm the heart.
It is a thousand pities then that the recording wasn't made in stereo (which should have been possible in 1956) and that the mono sound isn't up to the high standards of the day. The orchestral contribution now seems constricted—even by comparison with the Karajan 1/Legge recording at Bayreuth from 1951. The other major regret is that the role of Sachs wasn't assigned to Hotter, then at the height of his powers and a noble interpreter, but to the reliable, articulate but sometimes gravelly and prosaic Ferdinand Frantz. He is surpassed in almost every respect by Edelmann (Karajan 1), for whose winning interpretation I broke a lance when reviewing that version. Nor is the rest of Kempe's cast quite as convincing as I had remembered especially in relation to that Bayreuth set. Grummer remains a sincere, outgoing Eva of a kind hard or impossible to emulate today, product of a lost tradition perhaps, but even she cannot quite match the absolutely inspired Schwarzkopf of 1951, singing on stage with a fervour and spontaneity that she didn't always match in the studio. This, like my other judgements, has been made by fresh and detailed comparisons. Listen to ''O Sachs, mein Freund'' or the opening of the Quintet in both versions: it is simply a case of the excellent being trumped by the superb and from here to the end of the work, Karajan conducts like a man possessed.
Similarly although Schock is an ardent and idiomatic Walther, he hasn't the Heldentenor strength and stamina of Hopf (Karajan 1) whose only rival in the role on disc is the golden-voiced but unauthentic Domingo, on the unevenly cast Jochum set (DG). Try the opening of the Prize Song—Schock is quite poetic but Hopf manages a smile in his tone and a smooth line, indeed sings the whole piece, and most of the rest of his part, with an ardour and breadth that, for once in a way, responds fittingly to Wagner's inordinately taxing challenge to his tenor. But Schock is still preferable to any Walther you're likely to hear in the opera house today (although EMI have high hopes of Ben Heppner, who will sing Walther in their new recording due to be made in Munich next spring).
Kunz (Karajan 1) and Kusche both take a broadish view of Beckmesser's role, declaiming with bite and bile. Kunz's reading is the better sung. As David, Unger is common to both Kempe and Karajan 1, and has few equals in the part, a reading full of youthful bounce and good humour. For some 20 years, he had few rivals in the role. Frick is a wise, clear and sonorous Pogner, though Ridderbusch finds more poetry in the role and sings it with a firmer legato on Karajan 2.
Mention of that set, yet another EMI classic, reminds us that stereo inevitably adds a breadth and depth to the sound picture, an important advantage in this work, especially when the recording, made in Dresden, is so beautifully and naturally balanced, enhancing the superb playing and singing of the Dresden forces. None of its successors has rivalled it in that respect, but Kempe's mono version has the benefit of the same orchestra on just as gratifying a form and a choir from Berlin renowned in its day as one of the best in Germany, West or East. In most respects Karajan's second recording is not as convincingly sung as his first nor as Kempe's. I would hate to be without Kempe, or indeed Karajan 2, but if I had to clutch one set from the burning ship it would be Karajan 1, a truly inspired rendering, replete from start to finish with that special sense of Bayreuth dedication—and in very reasonable sound.'