MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Not available in the USA.

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK

Richard WAGNER (1813-1883)
Götterdämmerung (1876) [260:12]
Brunnhilde - Kirsten Flagstad (soprano); Siegfried - Set Svañholm (tenor); Hagen - Egil Nordsjø (bass); Gutrune - Ingrid Bjoner (soprano); Waltraute - Eva Gustavson (mezzo); Gunther - Waldemar Johnsen (baritone); Alberich - Per Grönneberg (baritone); Woglinde - Unni Bugge-Hanssen (soprano); Welgunde - Karen Marie Flagstad (soprano); Flosshilde - Beate Asserson (mezzo); 1st Norn - Eva Gustavson (alto); 2nd Norn - Karen Marie Flagstad (mezzo); 3rd Norn - Ingrid Bjoner (soprano)
Norwegian Opera Chorus
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra; Norwegian Opera Orchestra/Øivin Fjeldstad.
rec. 5, 8, 10 January 1956, Norwegian Radio Studios, Oslo; 14 March, 1956, University Hall, Oslo. ADD. Mono
NAXOS HISTORICAL 8.112066-69 [4 CDs: 52:40 + 59:59 + 69:37 + 77:56]

Experience Classicsonline

This Norwegian recording was fairly coolly received on its appearance in 1956 and has never really featured in the list of top recommendations. Critics spoke respectfully and affectionately of the great Kirsten Flagstad’s contribution. It is indeed a phenomenon that she could undertake so arduous a role in her sixty-first year, but there is no disguising the fact that her voice is no longer that which “once moved heaven and earth”. There are edgy, even screechy patches, a matronly tone and she avoids any note above B-flat. At the end of what should be the great conspiracy trio which concludes Act II, she slides and makes some uncomfortable sounds; consequently that climactic point lacks the thrills provided by Nilsson, Frick, Fischer-Dieskau and Solti. On the other hand, the famous aureate amplitude of voice is still very much in evidence at certain points and there are frequent glimmers of the old majesty. One is still conscious of the sheer size of the voice even when the tone is a little curdled. The richness of her lower voice is intact and she mostly rises to the challenge of the climax to the entire tetralogy, with a grand “Starke Scheite”.
 
Her co-singers are a mixed bunch. Baritone Waldemar Johnsen is sadly inadequate as Gunther; he barks and yells. The Hagen of Egil Nordsjø too often sounds woolly and worn, without the requisite bite and darkness of tone that a really chilling impersonation of this role demands. He is better in quiet passages such as when he “sleep-talks” in answer to his father but the voice loses steadiness and power in the “Hoihos”.
 
Fortunately, there are compensations in the form of an excellent, incisive Alberich and some full-throated singing from the chorus. The conducting is unexpectedly first-rate. This is alternately driven and sensitive, by a conductor of whom most of us will never have heard, Øivin Fjeldstad. Some occasional tuning problems in the orchestra notwithstanding, he shapes and paces the orchestral passages beautifully so that preludes and the Funeral Music really make their mark. Set Svanholm was a very experienced and distinguished Swedish Wagnerian heldentenor. He is occasionally somewhat bleaty of tone in the Windgassen manner but very musical and dependable. He has the stamina to endure the rigours of the role and sustain intensity during his long narration scene just before the death, as well as the ability to produce a prolonged top C.
 
In the supporting cast, three good Norwegian singers double up variously as Norns, Rhinemaidens, Gutrune and Waltraute: mezzo-soprano Eva Gustavson is especially fine as the latter. The attractively-voiced Ingrid Bjoner makes much of Gutrune’s music in a role which is too often under-cast. The other Flagstad in the cast has something of a tremolo but it’s not distracting.
 
Flagstad was an enthusiastic advocate of this recording, not out of vanity but because it presented the Norwegian National Opera, of which she was briefly Director (1958-1960) as a company able to do justice to a great Wagnerian masterpiece. Her own fast-deteriorating health made it clear that she would not be able to record another. It was her determination that it should be commercially released that persuaded Decca’s John Culshaw to record the forty minutes of music missing from the original recording. The only thing preventing this from being complete is that it is missing the transitional orchestral interlude between the first and second scenes of Act I. This therefore remains the first (almost) complete commercial recording of Götterdämmerung and thus retains its historical importance as well as being of intrinsic artistic worth.
 
The mono recording has been re-mastered by Mark Obert-Thorn. It is still rather hissy but very listenable. Voices are prominent but the various orchestral lines may be heard. Cues and synopsis are provided but no libretto.
 
I would like to be able to say that this is the fulfilment of a Wagnerian’s dream but it isn’t. It nonetheless has sterling qualities. If only it had been recorded a few years earlier before age and Flagstad’s progressive ill-health had begun to take their toll.
 
Ralph Moore

See revew by John Whitmore

 



 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Error processing SSI file