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I write regarding the DG Sinopoli Tannhauser recording. For me this recording has an odd perspective. Musical passages are almost inaudible at times and seem excessively loud at other times. It just feels disjointed.
I am wondering what opinions other listeners may have about this recording.
Follow Ups:
Funny -- earlier this week I was readying reviews of Tannhauser recordings online and came across one that specifically criticized the sonics of the DG Sinopoli recording:
http://www.stereophile.com/content/itannh228useri-wagners-problem-opera-sinopoli-recording
Yes, I tend to agree with the author's criticism that the recording lacks soundstage depth. In several instances--the shepherd's song and the first appearance of the chorus--the vocals are so low in volume that they seem to contrive depth rather than convince us it is there.
I think it is the finest performance of Tannhauser recorded. Having said that, I wish it were in analog, on LP, like my other sets (Solti, Sawallisch, Konwitschy - well I also have the Janowski on SACD) - but Sinopoli shows what a beautiful score it is, and he has a great cast, even though I find Domingo's voice not quite right for the role. I need to dust it off and listen for the quality of the recorded sound, I suppose, but I think it is a fantastic performance.
Oddly, I think his Dutchman (which I acquired after being so enthusiastic about his Tannhauser) is a flop.
I am/was a big fan of Sinopoli's Wagner and Strauss, (not that his ideas always worked) but for Dutchman's my favorite is Dohnanyi's with the Cleveland. The ghost ship scene is really exciting!
Dutchman,ranks as the Wagner opera I have heard most live - 4 times if you include the semi-staged performance done by MTT and the San Francisco Symphony a number of years ago. I believe my favorite recording is the old Keilberth recording - Klemperer is considered by many to be the classic, but I do think a few of his tempos are overly slow. I recently passed up a sealed set of the Bohm LP set......I think that he is just a dull, dull conductor. Ah well. The most recent issue of Gramophone has an in depth retrospective of the Schwarzkopf/Szell Four Last Songs, by the well, and the Della Casa/Bohm version is sort of the foil. While I haven't heard either recording, I agree with our comments with respect to Schwarzkopf's interpretive tendencies, and wish that these recordings had the conductors switched.....
I dom't think of Bohm as a dull conductor--have you heard his Bayreuth recording of Tristan, for example?
I have tried and tried with the famous Bayreuth Tristan conducted by Böhm, and I just can't connect with it. What works for some listeners sounds a bit perfunctory to me.
Heard, not heart....maybe there is some kind of message there.
I have not heard his famous Tristan - I own a copy, which came bundled with Kna's Parsifal and the Varviso Meistersinger - haven't listened to the Meistersinger yet, either. I have heard chunks of his Ring, and IMO, based on that, Bohm is not my ideal conductor of Wagner. He does not let the music flow organically, from within the phrases, and bangs ahead bar to bar, lacking the repose to allow the orchestration to speak.
I recently came across a set of his Beethoven symphonies, on LP, for $4.99, and decided to give them a try, since others on the vinyl forum raved about them. My mini-review is posted over on the vinyl asylum, but in general I found this set to be extremely four-square and,(yes) dull. Actually I could hardly make it through the full nine- it felt like a duty, instead of the adventure working through the Beethoven nine should be.
One of Bohm's recordings, that of Mozart's symphony no. 39, was extremely important to me when I was young, so I was inclined to be favorable towards his body of work, but from what I have heard, dull and unimaginative are reasonable adjectives for his conducting.
I have the Solti/Kollo Tannhauser on LP as well as the Sinopoli DG CD. I like Sinopoli's generally broader tempos. Solti rushes through more than is necessary.
If you give a listen, let me know what you think about the sonic perspectives.
Thanks,
George
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