A quarter-century of postwar Bayreuth recordings. This survey of Wagner’s mature operas, excluding the Ring, takes the listener from Parsifal in 1951 under Hans Knappertsbusch, through to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg under Silvio Varviso in 1974. The casts were often youthful, but coached by the Festival co-director Wieland Wagner into an intense engagement with text and music. Performances here by Wolfgang Windgassen, Hermann Uhde, Ludwig Weber, Birgit Nilsson and others reach a special level of long-breathed intensity almost impossible to sustain under studio conditions.

The featured conductors on the set are Hans Knappertsbusch, Joseph Keilberth, Karl Böhm and Wolfgang Sawallisch. CD25 of the set includes a previously unpublished radio interview with Irene Dalis and George London, the Kundry and Amfortas in the 1962 Parsifal with Knappertsbusch, as well as a rehearsal of the Böhm Tristan.

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A quarter-century of postwar Bayreuth recordings, made live at the Festspielhaus by Decca, DG and Philips: this is an absorbing history in sound of Wagner interpretation featuring several albums of timeless authority.

This survey of Wagner’s mature operas, excluding the Ring, takes the listener from Parsifal in 1951 under Hans Knappertsbusch, through to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg under Silvio Varviso in 1974. Both the 1951 Parsifal and Lohengrin from two years later, under Joseph Keilberth, were captured in ‘ffrr’ mono by the legendary Decca team of engineers under the supervision of John Culshaw. Decca continued to work at Bayreuth until 1955, capturing Der fliegende Holländer, also under Keilberth, in a superb example of Decca’s early stereo sound.

The casts were often youthful, but coached by the Festival co-director Wieland Wagner into an intense engagement with text and music. Performances here by Wolfgang Windgassen, Hermann Uhde, Ludwig Weber, Birgit Nilsson and others reach a special level of long-breathed intensity almost impossible to sustain under studio conditions.

None of the conductors involved had worked at Bayreuth before the war. Keilberth, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Karl Böhm all engaged with Wieland in finding a new, flowing but dramatically inflected style in Wagner. Something of this New Bayreuth style also infuses Knappertsbusch’s 1962 Parsifal with a unique combination of mystery and rapture. The set includes a previously unpublished radio interview with Irene Dalis and George London, the Kundry and Amfortas in that performance.

Like Knappertsbusch’s Parsifal, the Tristan und Isolde under Böhm in 1966 was rapidly recognised as a classic of the gramophone and has hardly been out of print since then, but it is reissued here with the rehearsal sequence included on the final LP of the original set. This ‘Original Covers’ box also includes a booklet essay by Peter Quantrill which explores the history of post-war Bayreuth and the circumstances of each recording.

Many recordings are now legendary, praised then as now:

“an almost perfect realization of Wagner’s last, strangest and deepest thoughts” The Record Guide on Knappertsbusch’s 1955 Parsifal

“Arguably the finest live recording ever made in the Festspielhaus” Penguin Guide on Knappertsbusch’s 1962 Parsifal

“Extraordinarily well recorded” High Fidelity on Keilberth’s Lohengrin

“The sound is really astonishing” High Fidelity on Keilberth’s Fliegende Holländer

“Böhm’s flow and surge are completely captivating.” Opera on Record on Böhm’s Tristan und Isolde.

Decca / Eloquence

Complete Decca Recordings (14CD)

The Mercury Masters (8CD Box Set)

Antal Doráti in London – Volume 1 (29CD Box Set)

Richard Wagner Edition (25CD Box Set)

Aafje Heynis Edition (14CD Box set)

Colin Davis – The Boston Legacy (13CD Box Set)