Wagner One Ring to rule them all...

[Lisztianwagner]

Yes, I find it reminds me of a 'heavy metal' riff.  It is intense.  I'm sure it influenced many Heavy Metal musicians, but I could be wrong, of course. 

No problem, Ray; well, many haevy-metal musicians said that Wagner was a massive influence for that kind of music. But to tell the truth, I've never thought of Wagner's works as "metal".

These words of Ilaria's are true. Sarge is right about Act 2, but oh, the reward you get for your patience is delivered with hundreds of bonus points in Act 3.

True....it was Act 3 that turned me into a perfect Wagnerite 

I absolutely agree!

[madaboutmahler]

Daniel, glad you diving into The Ring, and enjoying it so far!

The Prelude to Act I of Die Walkure is so heavy metal ~ it is mind and speaker blowing!! 

Thanks, Ray!:)
Die Walkure tommorow, so all your words make me very excited to hear it!

This was just a brilliant idea of orchestration from Wagner. Simply ingenious.

Composers who use hammers tend to be geniuses! 

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Quote from: madaboutmahler on Today at 22:38:05

Composers who use hammers tend to be geniuses! 


Why do I think we can expect a 'Concerto for Hammer and Orchestra' from you ?

[eyeresist]

I was born in the land of Heineken (forget Rembrandt), and I don't drink beer. Or any alcohol, for that matter.

I'm Australian and I don't drink beer     It aggravates my arthritis (as do peanuts and raw tomatoes). 
Luckily I love (good) cider, and it's made with apples - it must be good for you!



Also scotch.

[knight66]

Don't know so much there. I just ate an apple while catching up on this thread. Bitter and acidic; there are about another eight that look just like it in the fruit bowl. A sour taste in the mouth.

Right: Wagner's Ring. For as long as I can remember Gotterdammerung has been my favourite of the Ring Cycle. But recently I have been listening to and watching Walkure and it is edging forward into 1st equal place. I enjoy it more each time I listen to it. But below I describe my favourite scene in all the Cycle.

Wagner's style is to have singers sing in long duologue passing the batton back and forth. It is a particular thrill to come to Gotterdammerung and suddenly we have an ensemble towards the end of Act II Scene V. Brunhilde feels betrayed and pours out her fury and she delivers into Hagan's hands the knowledge of how Siegfried can be murdered. Hagan, Gunter and Brunhilde join in a thrilling trio of vengeance which ends the act.

Mike

[madaboutmahler]

Quote from: madaboutmahler on Today at 22:38:05

Composers who use hammers tend to be geniuses! 


Why do I think we can expect a 'Concerto for Hammer and Orchestra' from you ?

What a wonderful idea, Johan!

[Lisztianwagner]

Composers who use hammers tend to be geniuses! 

So, would you consider Josef Strauss a genius?

[eyeresist]

Composers who use hammers tend to be geniuses! 

Karl, THIS is where you should make a comment about the Shed.

[rw1883]

It doesn't say it on the box, but the website says CD reissue, so I'm assuming there's no remastering on this set:

[asin]B004FLKV5O[/asin]

[JDWalley]

Just finished this entire thread. It just seemed like silence descended in early April.  MAD, how did the rest of the cycle go?

[madaboutmahler]

Just finished this entire thread. It just seemed like silence descended in early April.  MAD, how did the rest of the cycle go?

Welcome! Hope you enjoyed the thread.

I absolutely loved the Ring Cycle, what incredibly amazing music! I listened to it in around 2 months, tending to go one act at a time, and enjoyed it all very very much. I posted some thoughts in the Wagner thread (on the Opera/Vocal part of the forum) throughout the journey. Karajan's performance was absolutely incredible too.

[Madiel]

Hello folks, popping back up after a few months away...

Well, I've now been semi-properly introduced to the Ring (and indeed Wagner) by watching it on 4 sundays out of 6, in my local cinema, courtesy of the New York Met.

Hmmm.

There's a lot of very good music in there.  But I can't help feeling that opera tends to be ruined by the plot.  There were are parts in it where I was totally involved, and then we'd get to something that made me wince.  I absolutely wanted to slap Sieglinde her and tell to get over it, and I wasn't especially fond of Brunnhilde and Siegfried singing their eternal love for each other either (BOTH times).

Whereas the purely orchestral music... well for starters, the very opening of each of the first 3 operas was fantastic.

[Lilas Pastia]

Hi Orfeo, your reaction is not unusual and you actually hit it right on the nail about the Ring's 'plot'. It is probably the major stumbling block for any one encountering The Ring for the first - and second and third times.  You had visuals to support your encounter with The Ring. For most of us audio only is the first and only source for experiencing it. Could be a blessing or a curse.

My 'defining expérience' with it was in 1983 when watching Götterdämmerung on the telly in non HD transmission. It was the BBC production: Bayreuth-Boulez-Chéreau. To this day the main thing that remains in my visual and auditive memory is Gwyneth Jones in the Immolation Scene. I do recall finding just about everything else bizarre and plain silly. Clearly a case where the listener is not prepared for, and quite critical of the perceived discrepancy between sight and sound.

Sometimes it takes years to regain an objective aesthetic perception. Call it artistic trauma. I don't think the music is at fault. Buy a record, not a dvd. You have enough intelligence and intuition to supply what's missing visually.

[johndoe21ro]

Good news, everyone! Hope this remastering is better than the last of Decca.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7JK_RJKtII&feature=player_embedded

In celebration of 100 years since Sir Georg Solti's birth, Decca Classics presents a new deluxe limited edition box set of the world famous Solti Ring.

This Exclusive, Luxury, Limited Edition box includes

A hardback book presenting:
14CDs: Der Ring des Nibelungen - the complete recording NEWLY REMASTERED.
2CDs: An Introduction to Der Ring des Nibelungen by Wagner scholar Deryck Cooke
1DVD: The Golden Ring -- the acclaimed BBC/ORF documentary - English and German Versions
1CD: Wagner Overtures, Siegfried Idyll & Kinderkatchechismus -- recorded in Vienna during the Ring years
1 BLU-RAY AUDIO: The complete Ring Cycle on a single disc in remastered, lossless 24-bit audiophile quality. Exclusive to this edition.

A Hardback book featuring:
The Complete Libretti of The Ring in original German, with English translation.

A hardback book featuring:
John Culshaw's fascinating account of the entire Ring project from inception to completion -- first published in 1967 and long out of print -- an important re-printing of this book for this special edition set. Exclusive to this edition

A hardback book presenting:
The full facsimile of one of Sir Georg Solti's working scores (The Ride of the Valkyries), in colour, with explanatory notes on Solti's markings by Charles Kaye of the Solti Foundation. Exclusive to this edition.

Special 40-page brochure with facsimiles of advertisements and reviews from Gramophone Magazine in the year of publication of the operas in the cycle. Exclusive to this edition

ART PRINTS - 5 high-quality art prints of recording session photos - Exclusive to this edition

[marvinbrown]

  Wagenr fans I just bought this:

  [asin]B000XTCBWS[/asin]

  Ever since hearing the Krauss Ring I have been drawn to the great voices of the 1950s that have graced the Beyreuth Opera House.  I am very excited to hear this cycle. It's in stereo and Hotter et al are in top form.

Please please I hope it lives up to its reputation as a "lost masterpiece".

P.S: Its price has dropped to £92 on amazon.co.uk, the cheapest I have seen it anywhere on the internet.



  marvin

[Lisztianwagner]

  Wagenr fans I just bought this:

  [asin]B000XTCBWS[/asin]

  Ever since hearing the Krauss Ring I have been drawn to the great voices of the 1950s that have graced the Beyreuth Opera House.  I am very excited to hear this cycle. It's in stereo and Hotter et al are in top form.

Please please I hope it lives up to its reputation as a "lost masterpiece".

P.S: Its price has dropped to £92 on amazon.co.uk, the cheapest I have seen it anywhere on the internet.

Great, let us know what this Ring is like, Marvin!

[DavidRoss]

Hello folks, popping back up after a few months away...

Well, I've now been semi-properly introduced to the Ring (and indeed Wagner) by watching it on 4 sundays out of 6, in my local cinema, courtesy of the New York Met.

Hmmm.

There's a lot of very good music in there.  But I can't help feeling that opera tends to be ruined by the plot.  There were are parts in it where I was totally involved, and then we'd get to something that made me wince.  I absolutely wanted to slap Sieglinde her and tell to get over it, and I wasn't especially fond of Brunnhilde and Siegfried singing their eternal love for each other either (BOTH times).

Whereas the purely orchestral music... well for starters, the very opening of each of the first 3 operas was fantastic.

I agree. With everything you said. Much of Wagner's music is splendid. The idea of setting this mythology operatically is remarkably ambitious. But despite his talent, Wagner bit off more than he could chew. Wagner the storyteller and Wagner the songwriter are not nearly the equal of Wagner the orchestral composer.

But let us bear in mind that most opera is rather silly. However, no other opera--perhaps no other work of art, period--takes itself so seriously as Wagner's Ring. Thus the standard of judgment must be more severe than the standard for judging a light entertainment by a composer without a trace of pomposity. Wagner's mystico-religious music dramas are too flawed by exactly what disturbed you to be successful.

To be successful, they must immerse the audience in the invented world, the concerns of the characters, and the outcome of their struggles. Time and again Wagner establishes the requisite mood, then shatters it with theatrical incompetence--the things that made you wince, destroying the suspension of disbelief necessary for the work to succeed on its own terms. But note that these works--like most--are more effective live in the opera house where audience immersion is more easily established and maintained and our attention spans stretch much farther than when watching or listening at home with the dog scratching at the door and the wife nagging us to take out the garbage and tele-marketers interrupting our reverie with sales calls, etc.

Despite its shortcomings, however, it's still one of the most noteworthy achievements in the history of music and certainly well worth knowing and returning to often.

[kishnevi]

I agree. With everything you said. Much of Wagner's music is splendid. The idea of setting this mythology operatically is remarkably ambitious. But despite his talent, Wagner bit off more than he could chew. Wagner the storyteller and Wagner the songwriter are not nearly the equal of Wagner the orchestral composer.

But let us bear in mind that most opera is rather silly. However, no other opera--perhaps no other work of art, period--takes itself so seriously as Wagner's Ring. Thus the standard of judgment must be more severe than the standard for judging a light entertainment by a composer without a trace of pomposity. Wagner's mystico-religious music dramas are too flawed by exactly what disturbed you to be successful.

To be successful, they must immerse the audience in the invented world, the concerns of the characters, and the outcome of their struggles. Time and again Wagner establishes the requisite mood, then shatters it with theatrical incompetence--the things that made you wince, destroying the suspension of disbelief necessary for the work to succeed on its own terms. But note that these works--like most--are more effective live in the opera house where audience immersion is more easily established and maintained and our attention spans stretch much farther than when watching or listening at home with the dog scratching at the door and the wife nagging us to take out the garbage and tele-marketers interrupting our reverie with sales calls, etc.

Despite its shortcomings, however, it's still one of the most noteworthy achievements in the history of music and certainly well worth knowing and returning to often.

It might be useful to remind people --or to suggest to those who have never heard it--of Anna Russell's lecture on the Ring,  which, while being utterly faithful to Wagner's libretto, manages to puncture almost all of Der Meister's balloons of pomposity. (And the other items on the CD are of the same high caliber, and the truly bargain minded can get a used copy for approximately one Lincoln.)
[asin]B0000027JD[/asin]

[Mirror Image]

One Ring to rule them all? That's easy...



It doesn't get much better than this and I own five Ring cycles: Karajan, Solti, Levine, Jurowski, and Barenboim. Karajan has all the power, majesty, beauty, and crystal clear dynamics that I need from my Wagner recordings. No other set compares IMHO.

[marvinbrown]

One Ring to rule them all? That's easy...



It doesn't get much better than this and I own five Ring cycles: Karajan, Solti, Levine, Jurowski, and Barenboim. Karajan has all the power, majesty, beauty, and crystal clear dynamics that I need from my Wagner recordings. No other set compares IMHO.

  OBJECTION!!   ......

  I have still not recieved my Keilberth Ring cycle 1955, so I write the following WITHOUT PREJUDICE:

  Currently I have 6 Ring Cycles in my collection: Solti, Karajan, Bohm, Krauss, Barenboim and Levine on DVD.  The Ring to rule them all must have the perfect cast, perfect conducting, great sound and great playing.  As I see it the perfect Ring lies somewhere between Bohm's  electrifyingly fast paced conducting and respect for overall symphonic architecure of the peice, Krauss's "made in heaven" cast (Hotter, Varnay Windgassen in top form) and Solti's technicolor sound with superb playing from the VPO coupled with a very very strong cast.

  The Karajan ring is proving to be my least favorite of the bunch as it falls short of these criteria.  I'm trying to like it Sarge, honestly I am  . 
Barenboim is like your typical B student, he's good just not great.

  I just ordered Keilberth 1955, which I am dying to hear......I am hoping that Keilberth 1955 = Solti + Bohm + Krauss or at least 80% of Solti + Bohm + Krauss . They say it is the best Ring cycle on record because it has Krauss's cast in top form, is in stereo sound, live from Beyreuth with a conductor who is sympathetic to his singers and has a firm grasp of the symphonic architecture of the Ring cycle. 

 
  marvin