This enthralling set only goes to confirm Furtwangler as the deepest and most satisfying of all Wagner conductors. How sad, almost tragic, it is that he did not live a few years longer so that he could have taken advantage of stereo and completed his EMI studio recording of The Ring with the Vienna Philharmonic or Philharmonia, each—as this issue proves—capable of fulfilling up to the hilt the great concepts in the conductor's mind. Every one of these performances is special, most of them unavailable for far too long. They complete the issue of virtually all Furtwangler's Wagner recordings for EMI.
The overtures and prelude to the earlier of the composer's mature works are particularly interesting, since they are operas with which the conductor was not as closely associated as with the later ones. The German word Schwung is the only one to describe the readings of the Hollander and Tannhauser Overtures. That is seconded by Furtwangler's unrivalled skill in combining disparate motifs into a single and convincing unity. Both are superbly played and more than adequately recorded. The Lohengrin Prelude, from one of the conductor's last sessions, sounds even better and benefits from the translucent playing of the VPO.
The extracts from Tristan and Parsifal date from before the war and emanate from the famous 1938 sessions with the Berlin Philharmonic. Given the conductor's complete Tristan of 1952 (EMI, 5/86), the somewhat dimly recorded excerpts from that work are less important than those from Parsifal. Furtwangler's absolutely riveting account of the noble Prelude is, in its visionary, elevated statements, on a par with Knappertsbusch's. Where Furtwangler's Parsifal is grandly eloquent, his Die Meistersinger Overture is elating, life-enhancing, with soaring strings and majestic brass; further evidence of how he responded to the specific Klang of each piece. Nobody has penetrated further into the adumbration of Sachs's character in the Prelude to Act 3, a 1950 recording incomprehensibly left unissued until the 1970s.
Finally, from Gotterdammerung we have the overwhelming, eventually tragic accounts of the Prelude and Rhine Journey and Funeral March from the 1954 sessions (the recording sounds brighter, not quite as smooth as on my original LP pressing), and Flagstad's later (1952) performance of the Immolation (no text provided). Although this remake is more amenably recorded than the 1948 version on 78s (EMI, 8/89—a Flagstad reissue), it hasn't quite the earlier account's spontaneity and incandescence. Nevertheless, it remains preferable to most of its successors. Who since has encompassed the vocal part with Flagstad's breadth and majesty? The postlude shows Furtwangler at his most masterly and the Philharmonia strings and brass, spectacularly recorded, at their best.
Although the earlier recordings here have obviously proved a little intractable, the transfers are on the whole lovingly done and, with a little aural imagination, the unique glory of the readings can be fully appreciated.'