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CD: Richard Wagner Der Ring Des Nibelungen 15 CD SET 414100-2 London OOP Rare MINT
37.99 USD
37.99 USD
30 Aug 2016
26 Aug 2016
Buy It Now
295
699
United States
Very Good
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Up for bids is a 15 cd boxset Richard Wagner Der Ring Des Nibelungen. All 15 discs are in MINT condition as well as the collectable booklets and the jewel cases and slipcovers. The outside storage box is in very good condition, with some minor wear on the corners/edges. Here are the details about this set:
This is it. The most legendary performance of the largest musical drama ever conceived. The Solti/Culshaw/Decca Ring is a milestone in recorded sound - the first time anyone had gone into the studio to record the whole thing. There will be no more projects like it - its scope combined with the way that the music industry has changed since the 1960s will ensure that something like this will never happen again. Even recording a studio Ring nowadays is next to impossible, what with the resources needed and the classical music industry having sunk into a black hole it will never come out of.
But does legendary necessarily mean good? Well, in this case the answer is: yes. This is a classic recording for a reason. If Georg Solti and the Wiener Philharmoniker had just utterly sucked (which is a near impossibility) than this recording would not have done as well as it did, no matter the groundbreaking status. Solti puts the drama first and foremost here. Everything is exciting, momentous, important. Sometimes this is to the detriment of the beauty in the music, but I would rather sacrifice beauty for drama in the Ring than the other way around - Wagner meant for this to be a piece of *drama* after all. The much vaunted recording itself is good, although it will not be mistaken for modern stereo. It sounds leagues ahead of previous mono recordings of this work, but you can hear some of the limitations of early stereo, what with the occasional hiccup or burp. You can also hear at a few points (especially in Rheingold) where the engineers spliced the tape together if you listen closely.
As for the operas themselves I will go through each individual chapter of this Saga and give some quick thoughts:
Das Rheingold - This just might be the least successful of the Solti Ring efforts, although it is still excellent. George London and Kirsten Flagstad are great in their roles (although Flagstad does sound a little too matronly). Set Svanholm makes for a good Loge. The descent into Nibelheim and the entrance of the gods into Valhalla are spectacular. The bad thing though is that it is in Rheingold that Solti is at his most driven, when this is the Ring opera that needs the least drive - I rather like my Rheingolds to be more... majestic and less forceful. Still, a great effort and a different interpretation from the norm.
Die Walküre - This one gets a bum rap from reviewers. Yes, Hans Hotter's voice is too far gone at this point but it's not painful, plus he puts enough feeling into the role that it almost compensates for the wobble. Almost. Birgit Nilsson is of course great as Brünnhilde. This is actually the most lyrical opera of this set as it was the last one recorded, so Solti is less driven than on Rheingold. Everyone likes to harp on how fast Solti is as a conductor (there was even a magazine article about it when he was alive) but Solti's Ride of the Valkyries is actually one of the *slowest* I have heard on record. This is not a drag race for the warrior maidens like with other conductors... this is more of a cruise, which oddly enough works.
Siegfried - This just might be the best opera in the set, and is definitely in the running for best Siegfried ever recorded. Others find fault with Wolfgang Windgassen's aging voice here but I find that his dramatic technique makes up for his dryness. Hotter is again Wotan but his voice fares a little better (as he recorded this first) and a little wobble is forgivable in this opera anyway - Wotan is disguised as an old man, after all. The Sword Forging scene is awesome. The Act III Prelude will move you. The only problem I have is that because producer John Culshaw wanted to show the Wonders of Stereo (a new and exciting thing at the time) and play with the soundscape, the voice of the woodbird (played by Joan Sutherland!) sounds a little too distant.
Götterdämmerung - This also just might be the greatest opera in the set. Everything is great here, and there are no deficiencies. When Birgit Nilsson sings the Immolation Scene you will be peeling yourself off of the wall opposite your speakers. When Gottlob Frick (whose very name sounds dastardly and eeeeevil) opens his mouth you will get shivers down your spine. This Götterdämmerung is a triumph of both music and recorded sound. If you get only one opera from the Solti Ring Cycle, get this one.
Enough about the performance itself. This has been released on CD twice now. On November 6th of 2012 (only a few days from the writing of this review) it will be released again in both CD and Blu-Ray audio. However, seeing as how that set will cost close to two hundred smackers, I suspect that those interested in getting the Solti Ring will have the same choice that they have had to make for quite a while: get this original ADRM digital mastering version from 1984 or the remastered CD boxset from 1997? Well, the answer is not that easy. Everyone's hearing is different. Some cannot stand this set - they think it sounds too harsh and trebly and condemn it as a bad mastering job. I happen to have the vinyl LP release of Siegfried as well as this CD release so I did a comparison and found that the original LP is rather bright and trebly just like this CD. I did not find listening to this CD to be painful, but those who hate this mastering keep in mind: all this original CD version did was take the analog master tapes and put them directly onto CD. No remastering, no fiddling, no nuthin'. Any limitations from these CDs also exist on the original vinyl. Others also hate the "excessive" tape hiss of this edition (which is common when transferring analog sources to digital). I did not personally mind that much, as I have heard audio with much worse hiss. Others decry the 1997 remaster for removing the tape hiss and (they say) along with it some of the harmonics and subtleties of the music itself (which can happen with noise reduction). I have heard the '97 remaster and couldn't hear anything missing, but my hearing is also not that good or precise. Because of the noise-reduction, however, the remaster does not sound quite as *full* to me however. But that could just be me. The bottom line about the two masters is that it all depends on personal taste. Just keep in mind that this original '84 version is a straight-up transfer of the analog, with all of the benefits and flaws.
Another factor to consider when choosing between the two sets is packaging. The 1997 remaster comes in one box (there are also individual releases of the four opera which you might want to get instead) with smaller boxes inside with paper sleeves containing the CDs inside *them*, effectively making it a Russian doll. Frankly, it is a huge pain in the butt to get any of the CDs out, especially considering that the boxes are wedged tightly inside the main box, which has to be opened from the top seeing as how it has a lid. The paper sleeves also have the potential to scuff the CDs. On the upside the '97 version still has the librettos included which many modern opera sets do not do. Also, the mini-boxes for the individual music dramas have the original LP cover art which is cool. By comparison this original 80s CD boxset has some pretty banal art, as in no real art at all. All of the boxes and the main box has the same picture of Wagner and Solti, who looks a bit like Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons" ("eeeeeexcelent!"). The only difference is in the colors of the lettering. Oh well. Where this set shines over the newer one is in the ease of GETTING THE CDS OUT OF THE PACKAGING. Because it has jewel cases inside boxes instead of the aforementioned Russian Doll Method, it is very easy to extract the CDs you want from this set. There is no lid on the box, meaning that the individual boxes come out easily from the main box. Why don't classical companies use jewel cases for boxsets anymore? I know that it saves on shelf space to use smaller packaging but it is a larger ordeal to get the media out.
Overall I would recommend getting this original 1984 set over the 1997 remaster. The master is a straight transfer from the original tapes and the packaging is a lot more convenient when it comes to getting your CDs out. Also, if you take a good enough look you can get this one used for cheaper than the '97 remaster (or the about-to-be-released behemoth) seeing as how it's an older out-of-print release. In any case if you are seriously into recorded music at all you should purchase and listen to the Solti Ring at some point in your life, not only because of the great music and drama contained within but because of the importance of the recording itself and what it represents.
But does legendary necessarily mean good? Well, in this case the answer is: yes. This is a classic recording for a reason. If Georg Solti and the Wiener Philharmoniker had just utterly sucked (which is a near impossibility) than this recording would not have done as well as it did, no matter the groundbreaking status. Solti puts the drama first and foremost here. Everything is exciting, momentous, important. Sometimes this is to the detriment of the beauty in the music, but I would rather sacrifice beauty for drama in the Ring than the other way around - Wagner meant for this to be a piece of *drama* after all. The much vaunted recording itself is good, although it will not be mistaken for modern stereo. It sounds leagues ahead of previous mono recordings of this work, but you can hear some of the limitations of early stereo, what with the occasional hiccup or burp. You can also hear at a few points (especially in Rheingold) where the engineers spliced the tape together if you listen closely.
As for the operas themselves I will go through each individual chapter of this Saga and give some quick thoughts:
Das Rheingold - This just might be the least successful of the Solti Ring efforts, although it is still excellent. George London and Kirsten Flagstad are great in their roles (although Flagstad does sound a little too matronly). Set Svanholm makes for a good Loge. The descent into Nibelheim and the entrance of the gods into Valhalla are spectacular. The bad thing though is that it is in Rheingold that Solti is at his most driven, when this is the Ring opera that needs the least drive - I rather like my Rheingolds to be more... majestic and less forceful. Still, a great effort and a different interpretation from the norm.
Die Walküre - This one gets a bum rap from reviewers. Yes, Hans Hotter's voice is too far gone at this point but it's not painful, plus he puts enough feeling into the role that it almost compensates for the wobble. Almost. Birgit Nilsson is of course great as Brünnhilde. This is actually the most lyrical opera of this set as it was the last one recorded, so Solti is less driven than on Rheingold. Everyone likes to harp on how fast Solti is as a conductor (there was even a magazine article about it when he was alive) but Solti's Ride of the Valkyries is actually one of the *slowest* I have heard on record. This is not a drag race for the warrior maidens like with other conductors... this is more of a cruise, which oddly enough works.
Siegfried - This just might be the best opera in the set, and is definitely in the running for best Siegfried ever recorded. Others find fault with Wolfgang Windgassen's aging voice here but I find that his dramatic technique makes up for his dryness. Hotter is again Wotan but his voice fares a little better (as he recorded this first) and a little wobble is forgivable in this opera anyway - Wotan is disguised as an old man, after all. The Sword Forging scene is awesome. The Act III Prelude will move you. The only problem I have is that because producer John Culshaw wanted to show the Wonders of Stereo (a new and exciting thing at the time) and play with the soundscape, the voice of the woodbird (played by Joan Sutherland!) sounds a little too distant.
Götterdämmerung - This also just might be the greatest opera in the set. Everything is great here, and there are no deficiencies. When Birgit Nilsson sings the Immolation Scene you will be peeling yourself off of the wall opposite your speakers. When Gottlob Frick (whose very name sounds dastardly and eeeeevil) opens his mouth you will get shivers down your spine. This Götterdämmerung is a triumph of both music and recorded sound. If you get only one opera from the Solti Ring Cycle, get this one.
Enough about the performance itself. This has been released on CD twice now. On November 6th of 2012 (only a few days from the writing of this review) it will be released again in both CD and Blu-Ray audio. However, seeing as how that set will cost close to two hundred smackers, I suspect that those interested in getting the Solti Ring will have the same choice that they have had to make for quite a while: get this original ADRM digital mastering version from 1984 or the remastered CD boxset from 1997? Well, the answer is not that easy. Everyone's hearing is different. Some cannot stand this set - they think it sounds too harsh and trebly and condemn it as a bad mastering job. I happen to have the vinyl LP release of Siegfried as well as this CD release so I did a comparison and found that the original LP is rather bright and trebly just like this CD. I did not find listening to this CD to be painful, but those who hate this mastering keep in mind: all this original CD version did was take the analog master tapes and put them directly onto CD. No remastering, no fiddling, no nuthin'. Any limitations from these CDs also exist on the original vinyl. Others also hate the "excessive" tape hiss of this edition (which is common when transferring analog sources to digital). I did not personally mind that much, as I have heard audio with much worse hiss. Others decry the 1997 remaster for removing the tape hiss and (they say) along with it some of the harmonics and subtleties of the music itself (which can happen with noise reduction). I have heard the '97 remaster and couldn't hear anything missing, but my hearing is also not that good or precise. Because of the noise-reduction, however, the remaster does not sound quite as *full* to me however. But that could just be me. The bottom line about the two masters is that it all depends on personal taste. Just keep in mind that this original '84 version is a straight-up transfer of the analog, with all of the benefits and flaws.
Another factor to consider when choosing between the two sets is packaging. The 1997 remaster comes in one box (there are also individual releases of the four opera which you might want to get instead) with smaller boxes inside with paper sleeves containing the CDs inside *them*, effectively making it a Russian doll. Frankly, it is a huge pain in the butt to get any of the CDs out, especially considering that the boxes are wedged tightly inside the main box, which has to be opened from the top seeing as how it has a lid. The paper sleeves also have the potential to scuff the CDs. On the upside the '97 version still has the librettos included which many modern opera sets do not do. Also, the mini-boxes for the individual music dramas have the original LP cover art which is cool. By comparison this original 80s CD boxset has some pretty banal art, as in no real art at all. All of the boxes and the main box has the same picture of Wagner and Solti, who looks a bit like Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons" ("eeeeeexcelent!"). The only difference is in the colors of the lettering. Oh well. Where this set shines over the newer one is in the ease of GETTING THE CDS OUT OF THE PACKAGING. Because it has jewel cases inside boxes instead of the aforementioned Russian Doll Method, it is very easy to extract the CDs you want from this set. There is no lid on the box, meaning that the individual boxes come out easily from the main box. Why don't classical companies use jewel cases for boxsets anymore? I know that it saves on shelf space to use smaller packaging but it is a larger ordeal to get the media out.
Overall I would recommend getting this original 1984 set over the 1997 remaster. The master is a straight transfer from the original tapes and the packaging is a lot more convenient when it comes to getting your CDs out. Also, if you take a good enough look you can get this one used for cheaper than the '97 remaster (or the about-to-be-released behemoth) seeing as how it's an older out-of-print release. In any case if you are seriously into recorded music at all you should purchase and listen to the Solti Ring at some point in your life, not only because of the great music and drama contained within but because of the importance of the recording itself and what it represents.
What you see in the pictures is exactly what you will receive. I accept paypal as well as other forms of payment. Please feel free to check out my other auctions as well as my positive feedback as I combine shipping on multiple items won. Email me with any questions you may have. Thanks and happy bidding