Hans Knappertsbusch conducts Wagner

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…the Götterdämmerung excerpts are most beautifully played with an abundant degree of warmth and a moderate degree of savagery where these qualities are called for […] the beauty of sound … is... — Gramophone Magazine More…

Release Date: 1st Jul 2013
Catalogue No: ELQ4807093
Label: Eloquence
Length: 2 hours 34 minutes

Excerpt, Wagner: Parsifal

Work length14:22

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Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1951
Recording Venue: Musikverein, Vienna

Prelude

Track length14:22

$1.10

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Wagner: Parsifal, WWV 111 / Act 1

Work length4:28

$1.10

$1.50

Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1950-06
Recording Venue: Grosser Saal, Musikverein, Wien

Verwandlungsmusik

Track length4:28

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Wagner: Parsifal, WWV 111 / Act 2

Work length9:27

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Günther Treptow (tenor)
Wiener Staatsoper, Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1950-06
Recording Venue: Grosser Saal, Musikverein, Wien

"Hier war das Tosen!"..."Ihn schönen Kinder"

Track length9:27

$1.10

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Wagner: Siegfried Idyll

Work length19:09

$1.10

$1.50

Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1955-04-01
Recording Venue: Grosser Saal, Musikverein, Wien

Excerpt, Wagner: Tristan und Isolde

Work length10:14

$1.10

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Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1959-09-25
Recording Venue: Sofiensaal, Vienna

Prelude to Act 1

Track length10:14

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Excerpt, Wagner: Tannhäuser

Work length21:29

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Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1953-05-07
Recording Venue: Musikverein, Vienna

Overture & Venusberg Music

Track length21:29

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Excerpt, Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer

Work length10:36

$1.10

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Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1953-05-07
Recording Venue: Musikverein, Vienna

Overture

Track length10:36

$1.10

$1.50

Excerpt, Wagner: Rienzi

Work length12:28

$1.10

$1.50

Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1951
Recording Venue: Musikverein, Vienna

Overture

Track length12:28

$1.10

$1.50

Excerpt, Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Work length9:13

$1.10

$1.50

Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1951-09
Recording Venue: Grosser Saal, Musikverein, Wien

Prelude

Track length9:13

$1.10

$1.50

Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV 96 / Act 3

Work length6:52

$1.10

$1.50

Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1951-09
Recording Venue: Grosser Saal, Musikverein, Wien

Prelude

Track length6:52

$1.10

$1.50

Wagner: Die Walküre: Act 3

Work length5:54

$1.10

$1.50

Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1953-05
Recording Venue: Musikverein, Vienna

The Ride of the Valkyries

Track length5:54

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Wagner: Siegfried, WWV 86C / Act 2

Work length9:58

$1.10

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Franz Lechleitner
Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1951
Recording Venue: Musikverein, Vienna

Forest murmurs

Track length9:58

$1.10

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Wagner: Götterdämmerung, WWV 86D / Prologue

Work length12:39

$1.10

$1.50

Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1956-06
Recording Venue: Sofiensaal, Vienna

Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey

Track length12:39

$1.10

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Wagner: Götterdämmerung, WWV 86D / Dritter Aufzug

Work length7:34

$1.10

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Wiener Philharmoniker
Hans Knappertsbusch
Recorded: 1956-06
Recording Venue: Sofiensaal, Vienna

Siegfried's Funeral March

Track length7:34

$1.10

$1.50

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About

‘It’s Wagner’s opera: let’s present him and not ourselves!’ This remark by Hans Knappertsbusch to Hans Hotter as the singer was about go on stage as Gurnemanz at Bayreuth in 1964 was characteristic of the conductor’s attitude. Singers’ egos, directors’ concepts and designers’ flights of fancy had no place in the Knappertsbusch vision of Wagner’s stage works. Indeed, after his second season at ‘New Bayreuth’, he told Wieland Wagner: ‘As soon as the spirit of Richard Wagner moves back into the Festspielhaus, I shall be the first to return’. And yet it would be hard to find a more flexible and spontaneous exponent of the conductor’s art than Hans Knappertsbusch, or ‘Kna’ as his friends and colleagues called him. No two of his performances were alike, which made him a difficult conductor to ‘capture’ in the clinical environment of the recording studio. He was notoriously averse to rehearsals, preferring to take inspiration from the moment when everything came together in the crucible of a live performance in the theatre or concert hall. Frequently the result was magnificent as this collection is testament to.

This collection brings together the bulk of his Wagner orchestral recordings for Decca (with the Wiener Philharmoniker), with scenes from Parsifal with members of the Wiener Staatsopernchor and the ‘Forest Murmurs’ from Siegfried with Franz Lechleitner in the title role – in all, more than two-and-a-half hours of music recorded for Decca between 1950 and 1959. Australian Wagner scholar Peter Bassett contributes the illuminating notes for this release.

Knappertsbusch died in October 1965 in Munich, following a fall at his home. In a long musical life, he explored the works of the great classical composers with intelligence and imagination; but, as he himself said, it was to Wagner’s music dramas that he devoted ‘his most and his deepest’.

Reviews

…the Götterdämmerung excerpts are most beautifully played with an abundant degree of warmth and a moderate degree of savagery where these qualities are called for […] the beauty of sound … is incontestable

Hans Knappertsbusch conducts Wagner

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