Die Walkure Act 1 Bruno Walter & the Vienna Philharmonic Lotte Lehmann, Lauritz Melchior and Emanuel List Recorded October, 1935 in Vienna VIP Records OP-1002 - $12.50 (US Shipping Including) Read the Reviews of this performance. It is amazing how easy it is to take great musical performances for granted. When this recording of Act 1 from Die Walkure was first released in 1936, Gramophone magazine gave it a warm, but not particularly glowing review. The thirties was blessed with an embarassment of riches when it came to performances of Wagner's operas. Today it is a different story. Modern critics and reviewers look to artists like Melchior and Lehmann as the model of great Wagnerian singing, and current performers inevitably suffer in comparison. It seems only in retrospect can we fully appreciate how truly fortunate we are to have recorded performances like this to rediscover and appreciate many years after the performers are gone. Lauritz Melchior, who was featured in my previous CD collection titled Lauritz Melchior & Kirsten Flagstad: Scenes From Wagner (VIP OP-1001), was the supreme heldentenor of the century. One of Melchiors signature roles was Siegmund-- he sang it a total of 183 times in his career. Lotte Lehmann, who sings Sieglinde in this recording, wrote in her autobiograpy, "My Siegmund was almost always Lauritz Melchior, the ideal portrayer of this part. Not soon will there be another with the warm outpouring brilliance of his voice, the dark timbre, which is so necessary for Siegmund, the radiant heights which must with unbroken power pour forth their Walse, Walse! in the first act, in a veritable orgy of richness and radiance." Lotte Lehmann is just as important to the success of this recording as Melchior. This particular performance as Sieglinde is arguably, the high-point of her entire career. J. B. Steane writes in his book The Grand Tradition, "It is the sense of a complete woman involved and a full dramatic realization of the role, that gives Lehmann's performances their ultimate distinction. Possibly the most remarkable of all is the intimacy of her Wagnerian singing." I have always been fond of this particular recording. I picked up a copy of it on CD about ten years ago, but I always suspected that the original 78rpm records would sound better than the commercial CD release. A year ago, I stumbled across a post-war reissue of this set, and although the dynamic range and frequency response was much better than on the CD, the records were well worn, with too much crackle and distortion to be of use. I redoubled my search to find a clean copy to work with, and was fortunate enough to find an original 1930's shellac pressing in pristine shape. The quality of the sound on these discs was a revelation to me. The richness of sonority produced by the Vienna Philharmonic came through with astonishing clarity. Walter's conducting was revealed to be poetic, lyrical and expressive, underlining the drama in every respect, without being heavy handed. As I reviewed the transfer to isolate the occasional stray click and pop to be removed, I kept getting sucked into the music, forgetting about my work at hand. The effort of restoring this important historical work has paid off tremendously. I think you will treasure this performance as much as I do. Online libretto for Die Walkure VIP OP-1002 Track Listings Track Number Track Title Time Track 01 Prelude to Act 1 3:16 Track 02 Ein fremder mann? 3:33 Track 03 Kuhlende labung gab mir der quell 4:19 Track 04 Einen unseligen labtest du 3:55 Track 05 Mud am herd fand ich den mann 3:27 Track 06 Trag'st du sofge mir zu vertau'n 3:24 Track 07 Wunder un wilde mare kundest du 3:00 Track 08 Die so leidig loos dir beschied 4:09 Track 09 Ich weiss ein wildes geschlecht 4:27 Track 10 Mit waffen wehrt sich der mann 3:32 Track 11 Was gleisst dort hell im glimmerschein? 3:54 Track 12 Der manne sippe sass hier im saal Click on the title to download a sample MP3 of this track. 4:07 Track 13 Dich selige frau halt nun der freund 4:03 Track 14 Du bist der lenz 3:22 Track 15 Wie dir die stim so offen steht 4:03 Track 16 Siegmund heiss' ich 3:39 Track 17 Bonus Track: Hymn To Venus Tannhauser Click on the title to download a sample MP3 of this track. 4:12 Order The CD Now Using PayPal! Total 64:22 MP3 Sample Tracks Der manner sippe sass hier im saal Lotte Lehmann 4:07 Tannhauser: Hymn To Venus Lauritz Melchior Here are sound samples of Lotte Lehmann's astounding performance as Sieglinde, and a bonus track of Lauritz Melchior singing Tannhauser's Hymn To Venus. Even as compressed mp3 audio files, it's hard to believe these recordings were made nearly seventy years ago. 4:12 If you like this CD, it is not inconceivable that you might also like... Walkure Act 3: Rodzinski/PSONY, Traubel, Janssen (VIP OP-1004) Prices & Ordering Information These CD's are $12.50 apiece. Shipping within the US is included. Shipping to Canada is an additional $2.50 for the first CD, and $1 for each additional CD shipped with the same order. International shipping is an additional $5.00 for the first CD, and $2 for each additional CD shipped with the same order. You can order online, using our secure PayPal links. If you don't have a PayPal account yet, sign up now using the link to the left, and you will get a $5 from PayPal for signing up. If you would prefer to send a check or money order by mail, drop me a line at... sales@vintageip.com and I will send you an order form that you can print out and mail in. Reviews Of This Recording Read the review of this CD at ClassicalCDReview.com I have heard few restorations in *years* that surpass the job Steve Worth has done in his superb and realistic achievement, breathing life into one of the greatest of all Wagner performances in recorded history. As a Bruno Walter enthusiast and collector for more than forty years, I have owned a ratty, well-played pre-war 78 Victor set, an early-sixties' Odeon LP, and a later American Seraphim reissue. The EMI References CD (and that label's other Melchior reissues) have a tonal quality that is clear but thin, wiry, and weak, with a mechanical characteristic that suggests a failure to properly balance the sound, as if the transfer were done "by the numbers" without regard to any defects in the sound of the matrices. If you want to hear what the recording *truly* sounds like, don't miss the VIP edition. Worth managed to secure a spectacularly clean copy of a scroll pressing, which required no fancy noise reduction. I've experienced only one or two such 78 rpm pressings in my life. They made me comprehend the potential of 78s; this transfer *realizes* that potential. The acoustic of the Grosser Musikvereinsaal is accurately reproduced here as it only has been in the original shellac set-- or on the best modern recordings-- but my copy of the 78s added the usual several billion ticks and pops, and had much more hiss (it was *not* a scroll or prized "Z" edition!) The Odeon Lp had a dreary, hollow electronic echo and savagely filtered top end, with a metallic edge that exaggerated occasional small ticks into nasty snaps with echo tails. The Seraphim had noisy surfaces and an eviscerated bottom end. NONE of these defects mar Worth's production. His editing is also seamless; he has not sweetened the already full bass, nor taken the energy out of the full and natural middle (which gives the voices the last possible ounce of realism and presence without turning them into the crass horn-like tonality of the EMI digital transfer.) At no time does one hear the annoying phase shift of an improperly-filtered top or bottom end. No artifacts of click-removing intrude. And, unlike many alleged "purist" transfers of old records, there is no trace of irritating shellac disk hissing. One has to be aware that the hissing wasn't taken out by filters or software; it simply wasn't *there* in the source material. A listener who has experienced near-perfect 78s will corroborate this truism; "pure" undoctored sound *needn't* be painful to endure! It is also thrilling to hear the VPO brass and remember that same brilliant, penetrating, yet liquid sound in the greatest of the old mono ffrr recordings by the VPO under Knappertsbusch, or the Solti "Ring".I cannot imagine that Bruno Walter himself ever heard this recording in such superb clarity. Truly, the engineers of that day performed a kind of miracle. The fidelity of sound to the natural timbre of voices and orchestra is fully satisfying to me, a former recording engineer who has used excellent modern digital equipment to record live classical music. The depth of sound is amazing: one hears "into" the hall as if being actually present. The balance of voices to orchestra is realistic, with the soloists standing out as if near the front of the stage and singing out in a very large opera house; yet the orchestral detail is flawless, with almost every instrumental nuance as clear as in most modern stereo recordings of Walkuere. I never found the slightest urge to change any aspect of the sound, to add or decrease bass or treble: from the full fundamental richness of the bottom octave of the double basses, through the sheen of the violin sections and edge of the brass, to the ringing clarity and presence of voices, the sonics are correctly balanced as if heard in real life. There is virtually no trace of harmonic distortion or surface noise. Only the highest frequency overtones above about 9000 Hz are missing: they could not be faithfully recorded on 78 rpm disks in 1935. But with all else in proper balance, one does feel anything is amiss. And Worth has not only resisted efforts to filter the sound, but also has retained the original solid monophonic character of the recording, so that it is fully faithful to the original sound engineering concept. I suspect that even "historicophobes" who insist on digital stereo will be impressed. This production is worthy of the company of the well-known modern masters of classical music restoration, and might even surpass some of their best work considered to be state-of-the-art. It is indeed hard to think of a 78 rpm disk restoration that *does* surpass it; and few equal it. Every lover of Wagner, historic opera recordings and voices, and curious historians of sound recording technology SHOULD investigate this mighty effort! This release will open the ears of opera lovers who do not have extensive experience playing original high-quality 78 rpm disks. The vivid, natural "direct to disk" quality of sound will sweep you away. --S.W, San Jose, CA "Die Walkure Act One with Lehmann, Melchior, Emanuel List, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Bruno Walter, all at the top of their form, is to our way of thinking the greatest large scale Wagnerian recording in the disc literature." --David Hall, The Record Book International Edition "One is consistently gripped by the continuity and sustained lines of Walter's reading, and by the intensity and beauty of the playing of the Vienna Philharmonic. Lotte Lehmann's portrait of Sieglinde, arguably her finest role, has a depth and beauty never surpassed since; and Lauritz Melchior's heroic Siegmund brings singing of a scale and variety-- not to mention beauty- that no heldentenor today begins to match." --The Penguin Guide To Compact Discs "The glory of this set is Lehmann's Sieglinde, which is no less enthralling as those who heard her in person would have us believe: the declamation of the text instilled with vitality and urgency, the tone full of rapture. One is really carried away as much by the eager inquisitiveness of her first entry and the extrordinary vividness of the narration (Der manner sippe) as by her ecstasy in the love music." --Alan Blyth, Opera On Record Return to the VIP Records Home Page To subscribe to the VIP Records email list, send a message to... recordslist@vintageip.com This page is maintained by Stephen Worth. 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