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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Father and SonWagner Scenes And Arias
“In the Wagnerian landscape, this is a revelation.” (Opéra) “O'Neill gave a blazing account …, confirming his place in the forefront of today's dramatic tenors.” (The Daily Telegraph) “A true heldentenor voice, with a rich, warm baritone quality in the lower registers combined with a clarion, ringing top.” (The Opera Critic) “To make this CD,” O’Neill said recently, “has been a dream of mine since my first Wagner role, Siegmund in Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera, in which I was the cover for the great Placido Domingo. This album surveys Wagner’s mature career from Lohengrin in 1850 through to Parsifal in 1882.” “His tone is more clean-cut [than Domingo's]...silver to Domingo's gold. His delivery...[is] thrilling, and not without real character and verbal sensitivity...He is lavishly supported here by his homeland orchestra..Altogether, this recording, in good sound, is more than promising.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2010 ***** “All credit to O'Neill for being able to make so much of this difficult assignment...in the more robust passages - Siegfried's reaction to the sleeping Brünnhilde, Parsifal remembering Amfortas's suffering - [his] authority and potential are unmistakable.” Gramophone Magazine, August 2010 “This is an exciting calling card from a singer with every chance of a big Wagnerian future.” The Observer, 18th April 2010 “Bleeding chunks of Wagner can make for awkward home listening. But clever programming and the ringing heldentenor of O’Neill make this opera recital less bloody than some...O’Neill wrestles with father figures and magic swords in a voice powerful and noble.” The Times, 1st May 2010 **** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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“The world premiere of Four Last Songs in its best transfer ever, plus some previously unissued Wagner from the same concert.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2007 ***** “Here's a live recording of the concert in 1950 when Flagstad gave the premiere of Strauss's Four Last Songs, followed by some truly unforgettable Wagner; yet it's the latter that makes the CD so exciting.
Flagstad and Furtwängler had several collaborations in these Wagnerian excerpts, but caught live in very reasonable sound they produce performances that lift one out of one's seat. Furtwängler is in incandescent form in the Tristan excerpts, and even more so in the Dawn and Rhine Journey from Act 1 of Götterdämmerung.
The music whizzes along with the most virtuoso contributions possible from the recently formed Philharmonia, the horns, headed by Dennis and Aubrey Brain, very much to the fore. Flagstad then sings the Immolation with quite wonderful freshness and conviction, and this at the end of a longish programme. The results are to invoke thetingle factor. It is worth mentioning that the pair had just been giving Ring cycles at La Scala and seem entirely at one in their readings.
The Tristan Prelude and Liebestod offer a similar frisson. Has the Prelude ever sounded so impassioned and urgent as here? Did Flagstad, in her numerous recordings of the Liebestod, ever convey so much tragic passion? Probably not, and she is in much better voice than in the complete 1952 set.
The performance of the Strauss, previously available on the 'grey market', is now heard in improved sound; but Flagstad, for all the richness of her singing, gives a fairly generalised interpretation compared with many that were to follow, and the conductor was never the greatest of Straussians. Still, as a historic document this is an important issue. The whole disc, carefully remastered, is a treasure.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 “Furtwängler is in incandescent form in the Tristan excerpts, and even more so in the Dawn and Rhine Journey from Act 1 of Götterdämmerung. The music whizzes along with the most virtuoso contributions possible from the recently formed Philharmonia, the horns, headed by Dennis and Aubrey Brain, very much to the fore. Flagstad then sings the Immolation with quite wonderful freshness and conviction... The Tristan Prelude and Liebestod offer a similar frisson. Has the Prelude ever sounded so impassioned and urgent as here? Did Flagstad... ever convey so much tragic passion?” Gramophone Magazine, June 2007 “The urgency and purity of Flagstad's singing in these live recordings, made at the Royal Albert Hall in May 1950, bear witness to her extraordinary qualities, defying age - as indeed Wilhelm Furtwangler does in his radiant conducting” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition */** | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Wagner: Overtures & Preludes
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| |  | Wagner - Orchestral Music
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| |  | Wagner Recordings: Arturo Toscanini & NBC SO
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| |  | Sydney Opera House Opening Concert 1973
1 CD & 1 DVD Australia’s musical landscape changed forever on the evening of 29 September 1973 when the brand new Sydney Opera House opened the doors of its Concert Hall to the public for the first time. In front of a packed, emotion-charged house, the great Australian conductor Sir Charles Mackerras made a triumphant homecoming in an all-Wagner concert. Now for the first time, ABC Classics is proud to release the entire concert on CD featuring the greatest Wagnerian soprano of the 20th century, Birgit Nilsson, as soloist. Included in this Australian Masters package is a bonus DVD featuring television footage of the concert’s second half. A memento of one of the greatest days in Australian music, it captures two master artists at the height of their creative powers with an orchestra playing at its peak. rec. Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House, 29 September 1973
Read more: http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2009/June09/Mackerras_wagner_4766440.htm#ixzz0tqtsiUan “But when [Birgit Nilsson] comes to the final scene of Götterdämmerung she gives everything… She seems stirred by the occasion, and the final stretch of singing is uncharacteristically exalted. Meanwhile Mackerras has shown himself an expert Wagner conductor, with an exhilarating Rhine Journey and a lacerating, noble and in the end triumphant Funeral Music.” BBC Music Magazine, January 2009 ***** “The tension of a great occasion is vividly caught, and the programme opens with a wonderfully swaggering account of the Meistersinger Overture, strongly characterised. Nilsson's singing… is in some ways even finer than in the complete recordings on which she appears...” Gramophone Magazine, January 2009 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Wagner - Orchestral Works
Recordings from between 1949-53 including rehearsal of Rienzi Overture | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Sir Georg Solti & Birgit Nilsson
This CD brings together two superstars of the last 50 years, Sir Georg Solti and the great Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson. The release was originally timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary (2007) of Solti's death and his 10 years spent at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden – but was delayed a year due to contractual negotiations - both the Wagner tracks are with the Covent Garden Orchestra, as it was known then, at the Proms in 1963. Solti's Beethoven is well known for its robust energy but this version of the 'Eroica' with the LSO is quite relaxed yet powerful and extremely beautiful. It comes from the same concert as the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 with Cherkassky (BBCL 4160-2). Solti and Nilsson were linked both on stage and particularly in the recording studio by Richard Strauss and Wagner. Solti's famous Wagner's 'Ring' cycle for Decca has been one of the monuments of the classical recording industry for many years and Nilsson's Brunnhilde is one of the phenomenon's of that celebrated set. She is here recorded live with a passionate accompaniment driven by Solti in the great Prelude & Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde where Nilsson's voice is so powerful that it dominates the ROH Orchestra even in the greatest climaxes! Wagner's Siegfried's Rhine Journey gives us a flavour of Solti in Wagner's 'Ring' providing tremendous attack and excitement. The CD has been recorded in excellent stereo sound and transferred with exceptional care by Paul Baily. “…Solti treated Beethoven's Eroica as a broad-based epic, the first movement measured and expressive in the Bruno Walter style, the Funeral March slow of gait and solemn of visage. …the two final movements were drawn into the concept making for a reading that was powerful, concentrated, entire unto itself. The playing in Siegfried's Rhine Journey is terrific...” Gramophone Magazine, December 2008 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
The Italian conductor Guido Cantelli was 36 years old when he was killed in a plane crash near Paris in November 1956. His death claimed the life of one of the greatest musical talents to have emerged in Europe since the end of World War II, a man who was regarded by Toscanini as his natural successor. Because of his early death Cantelli made few commercial recordings, but there are a number of very important surviving broadcasts, especially from his time in New York, which are now much sought after by collectors all over the world. Guild is very pleased to be able to offer, on this well-filled new CD, a representative selection from these broadcasts, featuring the New York Philharmonic and NBC Symphony Orchestras. The sound is very good, and the performances are filled with the Cantelli magic which made his death such a tragic loss. Live recordings 1951-53 | | | Usually despatched in 8 - 10 working days. |
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| |  | Wagner: Orchestral Highlights
Wagner: | Der fliegende Holländer: Overture recorded in the Concert Hall of Slovak Philharmonic, Bratislava, December 1988 Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Halasz Tannhäuser: Overture recorded in the Concert Hall of Slovak Philharmonic, Bratislava, December 1988 Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Halasz Lohengrin: Prelude to Act 1 recorded in the Concert Hall of Slovak Philharmonic, Bratislava, December 1988 Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Halasz Das Rheingold: Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla recorded in the Concert Hall of Czechoslovak Radio, Bratislava, October 1988 Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Uwe Mund Rienzi Overture recorded in the Teatro Cervantes, Malaga, 2-4 April 2002 Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra, Alexander Rahbari Götterdämmerung: Siegfried's Rhine Journey recorded in the Concert Hall of Czechoslovak Radio, Bratislava, October 1988 Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Uwe Mund Die Walküre: Ride of the Valkyries recorded in the Concert Hall of Czechoslovak Radio, Bratislava, October 1988 Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Uwe Mund |
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Gramophone Awards 2007
Gramophone Magazine