This, the penultimate volume of this huge venture opens with some desirable extracts from a 1943 Die Meistersinger, yet another performance conducted by the sterling Bohm. It is adorned by Herrmann’s lyrical, poetic Sachs, a reading based on firm tone, incisive diction and finely etched legato singing, the best example of this underrated baritone’s art I have yet heard. The Flieder receives an inward, thoughtful interpretation, followed by an account of the duet with Maria Reining’s radiant Eva that approaches an ideal. Then he leads into the Act 3 Quintet as poetically as any Sachs on disc, the ensemble itself led off by Reining’s poised singing. Lorenz is his usual over-effusive self in the Prize song, and the final track has Herrmann somewhat tiring in Sachs’s final solo. The sound is mostly excellent. So, these are further important mementoes of the unrivalled ensemble then resident in Vienna.
The same can be said of the complete Ariadne, conducted by Bohm at the Opera for Strauss’s eightieth birthday, but then this is an old friend already available on Preiser (11/94), where the transfer yields marginally superior results – I refer readers to my favourable review of that set. But, of course, you have here a bonus in the Wagner, and so better value for money in terms of quantity of music. Either way the Ariadne is a ‘must’, arguably the most idiomatic recording the Strauss masterpiece has ever received.'