Comparative transfer
EMI 5 85873 2 reviewed
by Paul Shoemaker
One could begin this
review with the following: a legendary
recording falls out of copyright and
Regis are the first non-EMI label to
give buyers the opportunity to pick
up, at budget price, a legitimate, re-mastered
recording of this great performance.
Unfortunately, it would be a false statement
since what Regis have given us is little
more than a poorly transferred copy
of LPs. There is little or no attempt
at re-mastering, distortions in pitch
and sound and untamed balances that
add rawness to a recording that EMI
– even if not perfectly – at least restored
in acceptable mono sound for compact
disc.
One of the problems
with this recording was always the balance
between the voices and the orchestra,
quite different from the way that other
opera recordings of the time seem to
have been recorded (especially on other
labels). Kirsten Flagstad, for example,
is placed – or so it seems - further
back from the other singers and even
though hers remained a ‘big’ voice in
1952 it – like those of the others –
can sometimes seem swamped by an orchestra
which Furtwängler, never one for
intimacy in the recording studio, unleashed
with considerable power. Perhaps Legge
was aiming for something more akin to
an opera house atmosphere, but it caused
problems on the original ALPs and it
caused problems on the very first re-mastering
for CD back in 1986. Subsequent reissues
have dealt with the balance as best
they can in the circumstances. There
are, lamentably, no notes whatsoever
on the Regis issue to give any indication
of what source material was used; Naxos,
who will be releasing their own re-issue
by Mark Obert-Thorn in May, turned to
German and American pressings but my
guess is that Regis – if not using the
original ALP pressing (and a lack of
a turntable prevented me checking against
my own original set) – certainly used
British records rather than continental
ones for many of those balance and sound
difficulties resurface here.
Regis’s discs have
the misfortune to be released simultaneously
with a budget price EMI reissue of their
2001 re-mastering. When I reviewed that
set in November 2001 I wrote, "I
have never heard the 1997 re-mastered
set but it was widely praised over the
original 1986 discs - and this 2001
re-mastering is certainly warmer and
more atmospheric than those original
discs, the strings much deeper toned
than I have previously experienced.
Compare only the Prelude between the
discs and the depth given to the ’cellos
at 4'42 is noticeably better in the
2001 set. Elsewhere, the Prelude is
less congested than it once was (try
7'13 to 7'31 to hear how the sonorities
blossom quite wonderfully. The climax
at 7'58 is quite superbly handled without
quite the level of distortion we once
heard). Listen to the Prelude to Act
III (track 14, disc 3) and that fabled
Furtwängler sonority is brought
to the fore in utterly desolate ’cellos
and basses, magnificently captured in
a heavier bass resonant re-mastering."
Sampling the new EMI set that opinion
is re-confirmed. It also makes one wonder
why Regis have released their own discs
for they are simply uncompetitive, and
would be at any cheaper price.
The first clue lies
in the recording itself: EMI have restored
their new discs using ADD; Regis have
restored theirs using AAD, perhaps unsurprising
given that they would only have had
an analogue source available rather
than EMI’s digitally re-mastered tapes.
But there have been exceptions to this
analogue/digital conversion: Naxos did
a remarkably clean job on their recent
reissue of Tosca restoring the
pitch universally throughout the recording,
for example. But EMI, if not restoring
their pitch correctly on all CD transfers
of their 1950s opera recordings, did
do so on their CD releases of all the
Tristan und Isolde’s I have heard;
even the briefest testing of the Regis
discs will tell you that the pitch is
not correct with the speed constantly
swifter than is the case on the EMI
discs (there is, in fact, an 11 second
discrepancy in the Prelude to the opera
alone). Some of this may, of course,
be put down to different turntable speeds
but Regis also have to deal with the
marginally incorrect pitch inherent
in their source material (see screenshots
below). Also worrying is a complete
lack of bloom to the re-mastering that
gives the recorded sound not just a
dryness, but a lack of spatial atmosphere
which the EMI sound really doesn’t suffer
from.
That pitch discrepancy
is constant throughout the Regis transfer,
but just one detailed illustration will
suffice to show the problems with their
re-mastering. At the Prelude’s first
climax (bar 16) – reached at 1’40 on
EMI but 1’36 on Regis – the noticeable
difference between the two recordings
is in the db level. On Regis it is –3db;
on EMI it is a much more restrained
–9db, the distortion levels clearly
audible with the Regis proving the more
untamed, and with the ‘roar’ that brings.
In fact, on EMI the db level never rises
above –3db; on Regis it often reaches
0db. Moreover, bass and treble levels
in the Regis are not evenly distributed
– they are in the EMI (and convert the
sound from single channel mono to dual
channel stereo – as I did in Peak 4
- and there is considerable variation
in the Regis sound with the balances
between the left and right channels
noticeably more uneven). Admittedly,
this matters more on headphones than
it does through speakers – but it matters
nevertheless.
Further problems with
the Regis disc are too numerous to note
but include: pre-echo at 1’21, an audible
track click at 1’31 and bad distortion
at 7’36 – 7’47 (all in the Prelude).
Track 4 ("Hab acht, Tristan"
[incorrectly punctuated in the booklet
note]) is marred by poor voice distortion
between 5’30 and 5’56 (especially amidst
the chorus) and there is bad fade out/fade
in between the end of track 4 and the
beginning of track 5. There are hints,
however, that the source material between
Act I (generally much more prone to
swooshings, distortion and clicks) and
Act III (less intrusively re-mastered)
is not consistent; for example, on CD
3 the vinyl improves in both quality
and acoustic – indeed, the end of Act
II captures both voice and orchestra
without any widespread distortion. If,
however, the fade out between Act II
and the Prelude to Act III (on what
is the end of record 4 on my original
LPs) is slightly abbreviated the fade
in to the Prelude itself is done without
problems. Moreover, the tone which is
so conspicuously lacking in the opening
disc is, by disc 3, somewhat better
projected. Disc 4 opens poorly – with
very bad crackle at just 14 seconds
into a track that is not ideally split
at this point of Act III. The Liebestod,
itself, suffers from uneven pitch (especially
between 0’24 and 0’51 – and there is
a nasty groove cut at 0’52 – 0’54).
Rather than this being the magical moment
it should be a certain roughness rather
than blossom overshadows Flagstad’s
achievement.
So, what of the performance
itself? I last revisited it for Musicweb
in 2001
and remain critical of the singing today,
even if it does still hold-up as one
of a handful of great Tristans.
When Robin Holloway wrote his chapter
on Tristan for Opera on Record
there were eight recordings available;
when I reviewed it in 2001 there were
more than 40 available. Today, there
are more than 60 – with yet more to
come, including a live Vienna Tristan
on DG in May conducted by Christian
Thielemann and an EMI one with Placido
Domingo and Antonio Pappano due next
year. The bulk of ‘new’ recordings,
however, have been live broadcasts (including
at long last official – though disappointingly
opaque sounding - Bayreuth tapes for
Karajan’s superlative 1952 recording,
still better heard on Myto). It is to
the live Tristans one must turn
for anything to equal – or surpass -
the Furtwängler and I still find
it impossible to discount recordings
by Erich Kleiber in Buenos Aires (1948),
Fritz Busch, also in Buenos Aires, (1943)
and Horst Stein in Vienna (1976) - with
Nilsson and Vickers in one of their
rare pairings as the fated lovers –
as top recommendations. Böhm’s
wonderful 1973 Orange
Festival Tristan (again with
Nilsson and Vickers) has appeared ubiquitously
on DVD, though I recommend getting hold
of the Rodolphe CDs (if you can find
them) for a ‘different’ experience of
this performance. Almost unsurpassable
are recordings by de Sabata at La Scala
(1951) and Carlos Kleiber at Stuttgart
in 1973 (with a fabulous cast that includes
Windgassen, Ligendza, Niedlinger and
Frick). No one recording is perfect,
but these get nearer to it than many
others do. Finally, if Tristan
were just an orchestral score one recording
stands head and shoulders above all
others: it is Leonard Bernstein’s Bavarian
recording on Philips. There is no better
played Tristan – and no greater
performance of the Prelude (as Böhm
famously said, Bernstein dared to conduct
this music as Wagner wrote it).
For many, however,
Furtwängler remains a yardstick
and if you don’t yet have it EMI’s budget
priced re-mastering will be unmatchable
value for money. The Regis – with no
libretto, and only passable notes giving
a plot synopsis and biographical information
– offers no musical or commercial value
beside it. I await with interest the
review copy of the Naxos Tristan
to see whether that offers an alternative
to the Regis -and EMI’s.
Marc Bridle
see also review
by Paul Shoemaker