Richard Wagner: The Ring Of The Nibelung

Description

This Ring cycle documents a musically significant episode from the Bayreuth Festival of the summer of 1953: the onetime participation of the Austrian Clemens Krauss, who had taken over the baton from Hans Knappertsbusch on relatively short notice and conducted Parsifal as well as the two subsequent Ring cycles following the first cycle, which had been led by Joseph Keilberth. Due to Krauss's untimely death in May 1954, at the age of just 61, his conducting was to remain a singular achievement. Fortunately, Bayerischer Rundfunk recorded this extraordinary moment in Wagner interpretation and captured the first cycle from August 8 to 12. Krauss, who was also a gifted Johann Strauss conductor, banished the dark, fateful heaviness that still prevailed in the Ring at the time. He paints in bright colors, prefers a gripping, not sluggish, rhythm, accelerates again and again, and keeps the mythical story moving with plenty of action. For many years, bootleg recordings of this Ring - which quickly became legendary, partly due to Krauss's early death - were sought-after collector's items.