Your basket is empty

Categories:
Narrow my search:

Results 1 to 20 out of a total of 4141
From
CD$19.77

Wagner: Parsifal, WWV 111

Martha Modl

Opera - Released June 2, 2023 | Profil Edition Guenter Haenssler

Booklet
The production of Wagner's overgrown Grail tale Parsifal from the shrine at Bayreuth, directed by the composer's grandson Wieland and first staged in 1951, was famously spare in its design; the conductor, Hans Knappertsbusch ("Kna," to perfect Wagnerites), thought the sets were still to be constructed and was chagrined to find that there really were very few. Vocally, however, the music was luxuriant. By the time of this 1955 live recording, most of the singers, including Martha Mödl as Kundry, were veterans of the production, and there was a strong newcomer, baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Amfortas, already with his characteristic honeyed tone. The production was recorded in the studio in 1951, with somewhat better sound than on this release, but really, the live sound is impressive for 1955 (some of the credit should go to Hänssler Classic's remastering), and text intelligibility is great. Further, Knappertsbusch is known to have preferred live performance to recording, and the production benefits from a good deal of forward motion; sample around and compare timings with other recordings, for almost everywhere, Knappertsbusch comes in faster than average. Yet the music never feels rushed in any way. Of course, several generations of Wagner singers have come and gone since this recording was made, but for those wanting to experience Wagner "from the source," this may be a prime choice despite its age. © James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$48.09
CD$41.69

Parsifal

Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra

Classical - Released May 29, 2011 | Challenge Classics

Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$24.71
CD$19.77

Wagner: Parsifal

Evgeny Nikitin

Opera - Released February 1, 2012 | PentaTone

Hi-Res Booklet
Parsifal is the second installment in Pentatone's ambitious project to record Wagner's ten important operas between in 2011 and 2013 in celebration of the bicentennial of his birth, featuring live concert performances with Marek Janowski leading Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Rundfunkchor Berlin. Janowski is an old hand at Wagner, having conducted the first (and very fine) digital recording of The Ring, and he brings a sure understanding and unified conception to Parsifal. One of its most immediately noticeable characteristics is its urgency, which essentially means faster tempos. His version at three and three-quarters hours is nearly a half hour shorter than classic recordings like Knappertsbusch's 1951 Bayreuth version and Solti's Decca release. What's gained is a momentum and sense of dramatic movement in an opera that's notorious for bogged-down performances. It also has the effect of making the opera seem more personal, even intimate at moments, because the momentum gives the dialogue between characters such immediacy. Janowski is sensitive to allowing the music plenty of space to unfold where it calls for evoking a timeless expansiveness, such as the scenes in the Hall of the Grail. The orchestra and chorus perform with seamless assurance and with a velvety sensuality. Janowski keeps textures transparent so that details of the scoring are easily audible, and that transparency also contributes to the intimacy of his reading. The exemplary vocal performances are uniformly very fine, and the singers bring an acute sense of drama to their roles and their interactions The recording is blessed with a wealth of expressive, resonant, tonally sumptuous, and clearly differentiated low voices, including Evgeny Nikitin as Amfortas, Dimitry Ivashchenko as Titurel, Franz-Josef Selig as Gurnemanz, and Eike Wilm Schulte as Klingsor. Christian Elsner is a passionate Parsifal and his ringing tenor is heroic and robust. As Kundry, Michelle DeYoung sings with warmth and poignancy and is especially effective in her rich lower register. The sound of the hybrid multichannel SACD is immaculate and spacious.© TiVo
From
HI-RES$24.71
CD$19.77

Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer, WWV 63 (Live)

Bayreuther Festspielorchester

Opera - Released March 14, 2006 | Orfeo

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Gramophone Editor's Choice
From
CD$7.90

Wagner: Le vaisseau fantôme (Diapason n°615)

George London

Opera - Released June 28, 2013 | Les Indispensables de Diapason

Booklet
From
CD$60.09

Wagner : Parsifal

Herbert von Karajan

Classical - Released January 1, 1981 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Distinctions Gramophone Record of the Year
From
CD$8.09

Wagner : Parsifal

Herbert Kegel

Opera - Released August 12, 2008 | Brilliant Classics

Distinctions 5 de Diapason
From
HI-RES$27.99
CD$22.39

Richard Wagner : Der Fliegende Holländer - Pierre-Louis Dietsch : Le vaisseau fantôme ou le maudit des mers

Marc Minkowski

Classical - Released November 4, 2013 | naïve classique

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
From
HI-RES$24.70
CD$19.76

Wagner: Parsifal WWV 111 by Clemens Krauss

Bayreuth Festival Orchestra

Opera - Released October 21, 2021 | Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording

Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$22.99
CD$17.99

Richard Wagner: Famous Opera Scenes

Nikolai Lugansky

Classical - Released March 8, 2024 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet
It shouldn't take listeners long to get over the novelty of hearing Wagner on the piano. After all, piano transcriptions were the primary way opera, in general, and Wagner specifically, were spread around Europe in the 19th century, and the composer's primary champion in this medium was none other than the greatest pianist of the age, Franz Liszt. Liszt's own transcription of the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde is the pièce de résistance on this release by pianist Nikolai Lugansky; it is not terribly often played, and it has lost none of its imposing scope over the decades. Lugansky leads up to this with transcriptions by Louis Brassin, upon which Lugansky has elaborated, and with a quartet of transcriptions from Götterdämmerung that come from his own hand. These are quite artfully done, incorporating the familiar leitmotifs of the Ring cycle while filling them in with technically fearsome connective tissue. Lugansky has done nothing less than put the listener in the place of an audience that might have heard Liszt play Wagner in the composer's own day, and ideal sound from the small Scuola della Carità reproduces the aristocratic Paris salons where Liszt would often have held forth. A bold, fresh release from Lugansky that made classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$24.70
CD$19.76

Wagner: Parsifal by Hans Knappertsbusch

Hans Knappertsbusch

Opera - Released February 8, 2023 | Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording

Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$24.71
CD$19.77

Wagner: Die Walküre, WWV 86B (Live)

Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks

Opera - Released April 3, 2020 | BR-Klassik

Hi-Res Booklet
From
HI-RES$15.56
CD$12.45

Schubert: Lieder with Orchestra

Munich Radio Orchestra

Classical - Released October 6, 2023 | BR-Klassik

Hi-Res Booklets
One might react to this album with initial annoyance and ask whether it is really necessary to hear orchestrated versions of Schubert's supremely pianistic songs. It may come as a surprise, then, to find that most of these Lieder with Orchestra were arranged by great composers. They include Benjamin Britten, Jacques Offenbach, and Max Reger, who took on the job because, he said, he hated to hear a piano-accompanied song on an orchestral program. Perhaps the most surprising name to find is that of Anton Webern, but his arrangements are not the minimal, pointillistic things one might expect; he wrote these arrangements as a way of studying Schubert's music, and they are quite straightforward. Indeed, it is somewhat difficult to distinguish the arrangers simply by listening to the music; Schubert's melodic lines tend to suggest distinctive solutions. Perhaps Reger's are a bit more lush than the others, although his version of Erlkönig, D. 328, is one of the few numbers here that just doesn't work (there is no way to replicate the percussive quality of the accompaniment). As for the performances as such, Benjamin Appl is clearly an important rising baritone, and he has a wonderful natural quality in Schubert. An oddball release like this might seem an unusual choice for a singer in early career, but he contributes his own notes, and he seems to have undertaken the project out of genuine enthusiasm for the material. At the very least, he has brought some intriguing pieces out of the archives and given them highly listenable performances. The Munich Radio Orchestra, under the young Oscar Jockel, is suitably restrained and keeps out of Appl's way. This release made classical best-seller lists in the autumn of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
CD$19.77

Wagner: Parsifal, WWV 111

Hans Knappertsbusch

Opera - Released July 26, 2007 | Orfeo

From
HI-RES$22.99
CD$17.99

Mein Traum. Schubert, Weber, Schumann

Pygmalion

Opera - Released October 7, 2022 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet
One morning in 1822, Schubert wrote down an enigmatic text in which all his ghosts seem to take shape: wandering, solitude, consolation, disappointed love. Inspired by this dreamlike narrative, Raphaël Pichon, Pygmalion and Stéphane Degout have devised a vast Romantic fresco, combining resurrection of unknown treasures with rediscovery of established masterpieces. © harmonia mundi
From
HI-RES$17.49
CD$13.99

Bach: Early Cantatas, Vol. 1

Emma Kirkby

Cantatas (sacred) - Released February 1, 2005 | Chandos

Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$24.71
CD$19.77

Richard Strauss Wind Music

Members of Staatskapelle Berlin

Classical - Released April 7, 2023 | CapriccioNR

Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$15.56
CD$12.45

Franz Liszt: Schubert & Wagner Transcriptions

Jean-Nicolas Diatkine

Classical - Released May 27, 2022 | Solo Musica

Hi-Res Booklet
Some of Jean-Nicolas Diatkine's singer friends have ended their careers, but their magic is irreplaceable in his eyes, or rather in his ears. He misses them, just as he misses the Schubert, Schumann and Brahms songs they sang. Well, there is only one person who can compensate for this loss, and his name is Franz Liszt. The main aim of transcriptions was to make orchestral works known to a wider audience, at a time when there were far fewer orchestras, and public access to symphony concerts was very limited. But Liszt gives transcriptions a new meaning: he puts the orchestra into the piano, since his style is particularly suited to outsized extravagance. Thus he opens up unprecedented pianistic possibilities, where virtuosity is no longer mere exhibitionism but rather transformed into the art of illusion. His arrangements of Wagner are so convincing that they become his own personal creations. Laurent Bessières, piano tuner at the Paris Philharmonic, suggested for this recording a Schiedmayer piano of 1916 made in Stuttgart, which he had completely rebuilt in collaboration with Antoine Letessier-Salmon, director of the French National Centre for Scientific Research, and Stephen Paulello, piano maker and inventor of the strings that bear his name. This instrument has almost never been used in concert, however excellent work by Laurent Bessières convinced us to try it out in this very special repertoire. © solo musica
From
CD$15.69

Schumann: Dichterliebe

Christian Gerhaher

Classical - Released August 1, 2004 | RCA Red Seal

Christian Gerhaher is the latest in a long line of expressive and intelligent baritones who have made a specialty of German lieder. With recordings of Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Brahms' Vier ernste Gesänge, and Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin, Winterreise, and Schwanengesang already to his credit, Gerhaher has already cut a considerable swath through the standard repertoire of German lieder. With this disc of Schumann's setting of Heine's Dichterliebe and of Lenau's poems grouped as a funeral tombeau, Gerhaher has chosen poems about love, madness, and death by the most literate and arguably the most romantic of the German lieder composers. Gerhaher has an appealing voice: strong and agile with a warm tone and a round sound. Gerhaher has a fine sense of the emotions expressed in the music from the heartfelt irony of the Heine lieder to the attenuated sentimentality of the Lenau lieder. And Gerhaher has a firm grasp of the symbiosis of words and music and the levels of meaning commingled in their fusion. If Gerhaher's performances have a flaw, it is his ambition to do it all right now, to infuse his performances with so much significance that they nearly sink under their own interpretive weight. RCA's sound is big and close but perhaps too intimate.© TiVo