Wagner: Orchestral Music from Der Ring des Nibelungen

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For this 2018 Naxos release, JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra present a standard program of orchestral music taken from Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. The four music dramas that make up the cycle, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung, are represented by their best-known excerpts, in the familiar concert adaptations by Hermann Zumpe, Wouter Hutschenruyter, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Ludvík St'astny. As dependable as Falletta and her orchestra are in conventional orchestral repertoire, the performances here seem detached and a bit cautious, seeming displaced from their element and lacking Wagnerian intensity and force. Because the music has been recorded so effectively by the great Wagner conductors of the past and by quite a few of the present, dedicated fans may regard this CD as a basic introduction to Wagner's Ring and nothing more. Listeners seeking a "greatest-hits" compilation may find this disc more than adequate for getting acquainted with such favorites as the Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla, The Ride of the Valkyries, Forest Murmurs, and Siegfried's Rhine Journey, among other highlights. However, they should use this disc as a springboard into the music dramas, which offer a wealth of great music as the composer intended it to be heard.

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