What is so special about Karajan’s digital recordings that they are reissued at full price and, ungenerously in this case, with only their original programme? The Act 1 Prelude might have been lifted from his roughly contemporary complete Parsifal to extend this disc’s timing – a Prelude which, one might add, is less in need of a concert ending than that to Act 3 of Die Meistersinger (which is here given without any kind of cadential close). Furthermore the remastered sound is not a major improvement on the original issue (not that it needed to be): the level is higher; the sound a degree more open and vivid; the platform noise and edits a little clearer; the piccolo still absent from the opening of the ‘Paris’ Tannhauser Bacchanale (start of track 2); and there are now traces of peak distortion audible at the climax of the Tristan Prelude, though nothing serious.
The answer to the above question might be another question: when, in modern times, have you heard from Berlin (or anywhere else) such long-drawn, ripe, intense, characterful, perfectly formed and supremely controlled Wagner playing? Not from Abbado with a Tannhauser Overture in a recent Berlin “Wagner Gala” disc (DG, 5/94) whose Pilgrims are about half as solemn and grand, whose revellers produce little of Karajan’s joyous eclat, and whose Venus sounds comparably coy.
Moving on a few minutes, and the passage where Karajan’s Venus succeeds in quelling the riot finds Karajan effecting a spellbinding sudden diminuendo (from 4'41'', track 2), leaving us with the enchanted eddying of the orchestra. It must surely qualify as one of Karajan’s ‘greatest moments’, had not the seemingly unstoppable tidal wave that preceded it already done so.
The true keeper of Berlin’s ‘Wagner on record’ recently has been Daniel Barenboim. His Tristan Prelude (from his complete Teldec recording, 9/95) is more conventionally paced (i.e. faster) than Karajan’s, with the phrasing just as steeply raked, and the balance and control, in some respects, even more accomplished (and his recording has a truer bass). But the breadth of Karajan’s conception is matched by his concentration (it never feels too slow), the playing is achingly intense, the whole superbly built, and the reserves of tone he is able to draw on for the climax seem limitless (the tone is never forced). I feel unqualified to comment on the degree or nature of back room enhancement of the sound which may have originally taken place, but can report that, while Teldec’s recording for Barenboim probably offers a more realistic Philharmonie experience, there is more bloom on the instruments in Karajan’s recording.'