The extracts from Lohengrin are the more important. Although the circumstances of the performance are, to say the least, unfortunate (the Berlin State Opera visiting Vienna to cement the 1938 Anschluss), it does widen our knowledge of Muller’s glorious Elsa, known until now only from the Telefunken extracts recorded at Bayreuth two years earlier (Teldec, 8/93). Her account of Elsa’s solos in Act 2 are an object-lesson in singing this music, with firm line and tone and a sensitive shaping of the text. She is heard but fitfully in the other items. Then there is Klose’s famous Ortrud, even more compelling than in the Schuchter/EMI set I reviewed last month, because in 1938 she was in firmer voice than in the early 1950s: her “Entweihter Gotter” rightly brings the house down. Volker is as convincing a Lohengrin as one is ever likely to hear, in vocal terms at least, but we are denied both his Act 3 solos and only a fragment of the duet earlier in that act is included. Even less of Prohaska’s Telramund is recorded. Tietjen seems to be giving an electrifying interpretation, as far as one can hear through the ‘mush’.
The sound is far better in the 1944 excerpts from Die Meistersinger, but these are of limited value for various reasons. We now have on Preiser a complete Bohm reading from the same year (6/95). Also, for some reason Hermann May concentrates on recording orchestral passages at the expense of vocal ones. The only role substantially represented is Sachs, and Josef Herrmann, though a keenly articulate singer, is pedestrian beside Schoeffler (for Bohm). What we hear of Ralf’s Walther confirms his reputation in the role: he is more fully represented in the part elsewhere on various labels – Dutton Laboratories, EMI, Pearl, Preiser, and so on. We have Reining’s colloquy with Sachs in a post-war performance with Schoeffler (Preiser, 9/92 and 1/95), so the one here with Herrmann is not a vital addition to her discography. On the other hand, her “O Sachs, mein Freund” certainly is – as full-voiced and passionate as one would expect from this artist. What a pity there is no Quintet.'