Klemperer was nearing the end of his career when he suggested to EMI that he might record the whole of Die Walkure. After negotiations, the company reluctantly agreed, but – sadly – only Act 1 was actually completed before old age and illness ended the conductor’s studio work. Four days after the sessions, the same artists gave a concert performance in the Festival Hall at which I was present. All the veteran’s ability to display the music in long paragraphs and his care for orchestral detail were there in the hall as they are in the studio, but the recording is virtually free from the slips in ensemble attendant on Klemperer’s last live readings. He may not quite summon the energy to instil the love music with the emotional charge it requires, but otherwise his deeply considered account is well worth hearing. Goodall rehearsed the orchestra for his revered colleague (fee £120), and you can sense that the notable English Wagnerian has had his influence on what happens in the orchestra by comparing this interpretation with the recently reissued Goodall version.
Kemperer demanded, and received, young singers. In the case of the 30-year-old Dernesch this is mostly to the good. She makes a warm, responsive Sieglinde, although she cannot quite muster Lehmann’s or Rysanek’s gift for spontaneous reaction. The even younger (26) Cochran reveals some inexperience; his portrayal of Siegmund, cleanly and strongly though it is sung, evinces little of the intensity the part requires and which can be heard in so many other readings of the role on disc. His vocal security is not to be denied, however. Sotin makes a formidable Hunding, a black bass incarnate.
Suvi Raj Grubb’s recording is admirably balanced and the sound has a fidelity to the original so typical of EMI’s work in the 1960s. For all that, the results remain earthbound, lacking the incandescence that Furtwangler and, even more, Walter and Krauss find in this act, and with singers more experienced in their roles.R1 '0103075'