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Bruno Walter – The Complete Columbia Acoustic Recordings – Works of MENDELSSOHN, BERLIOZ, WEBER, WAGNER, & R. STRAUSS – Pristine Audio

Bruno Walter – The Complete Columbia Acoustic Recordings – Works of MENDELSSOHN, BERLIOZ, WEBER, WAGNER, & R. STRAUSS – Pristine Audio

by | Dec 18, 2016 | Classical Reissue Reviews

The earliest Bruno Walter records reveal a committed Romantic conductor in music in the German tradition.  Bruno Walter – The Complete Columbia Acoustic Recordings – WEBER: Overture to Der Freischuetz;  MENDELSSOHN: Nocturne from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 61; BERLIOZ: Menuet of the Will-o’-the-Wisps from La Damnation de Faust, Op. 24; WAGNER: Tristan und Isolde: Liebestod; Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg: Prelude, Act III; Goetterdaemmerung: Siegfried’s Rhine Journey; A Siegfried Idyll; R. STRAUSS: Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24 – Royal Philharmonic Orch./ Bruno Walter – Pristine Audio PASC 482, 76:50 [avail. in various formats from www.pristineclassical.com] ****: Producer and Recording Engineer Mark Obert-Thorn provides the following remarks concerning Bruno Walter’s first efforts for gramophone recordings: “Although Bruno Walter (1876-1962) claimed late in life that he had made his first recordings around 1900, his earliest documented discs date from 1923 when he began a series for Grammophon/Polydor in Berlin, most of which have been reissued on Pristine PASC 142 and PASC 322.  In May 1924, Walter was in London for the first presentation of a German opera season at Covent Garden since the end of the Great War.  That month, he conducted Wagner’s Ring cycle, Tristan und Isolde, and Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier […]

MENDELSSOHN: Ov. & Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream; SCHUBERT: Sym. No. 8 – Soloists/Vienna Sym./ Clemens Krauss – Opus Kura

MENDELSSOHN: Ov. & Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream; SCHUBERT: Sym. No. 8 – Soloists/Vienna Sym./ Clemens Krauss – Opus Kura

by | Jun 20, 2016 | Classical Reissue Reviews

Viennese conductor Clemens Krauss finds seamless restorations in these rare moments in his impressive repertory.  MENDELSSOHN: A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Overture, Op. 21; Incidental Music, Op. 61; SCHUBERT: Symphony No. 8 in b minor, D. 759 “Unfinished” – Dagmar Herman, mezzo-sop,/ Ilona Steingruber, sop./ Vienna Sym. Orch./ Chorus of the Vienna State Orch./ Bamberg Sym. Orch. (Schubert)/ Clemens Krauss – Opus Kura OPK 7076, 66:09 [Distr. by Albany] ****: Opus Kura restores music the Viennese conductor Clemens Krauss (1893-1954) led for two relatively minor labels, Vox and Amadeo, including his only recorded documentation (from Vox, 1950) in Mendelssohn. Noted for his natural and elastic style in the music of Strauss – and that includes the waltz-king family and Richard Strauss – Krauss had an impressively large Austro-Hungarian repertory that embraced Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, Weinberger, Stravinsky, and Wagner, including a 1953 Ring cycle at Bayreuth. The Mendelssohn Overture and Incidental Music to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream enjoys the requisite lightness of hand.  Both annotator Tully Potter and I appreciate hearing the natural F horn from Vienna in the famous glowing Nocturne.  In this linear, stylistic performance, as in the Schubert symphony, Krauss allows much of the music to “play […]