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Cat. No.: 480 1799 |
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Kirsten Flagstad, soprano
TRACK LISTING SCHUBERT
BRAHMS
SCHUMANN
WOLF
R. STRAUSS
SINDING Den Jomfru gik i valmu-Vang? Op. 50, No. 5
The first of four 2-CD “Flagstad Recitals” features Kirsten Flagstad in Brahms and Schubert on CD1 as well as CD premieres of songs by Schumann (including her previously unpublished “Zum Schluss”), Strauss, Wolf and Sinding on CD2. Her great power and control placed her among those with the natural capacity for success in the ‘big’ songs with its special thrill, but there is no want of gentleness in the quieter ones. The American critic, Virgil Thomson, probably spoke for the whole audience when he wrote on Flagstad’s return to the United States in 1947: ‘Never in this writer’s concert-going lifetime has there been available any other vocal artistry of such sumptuous natural acoustics, such perfect technical control and such sound musicianship’. "Throughout, one is stirred by the sheer beauty of the sound." “deeply felt … wonderfully radiant tone … very touching” [Brahms] "…worth having for the Wolf group alone." Gramophone |
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Cat. No.: 480 1804 |
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ARTISTS Kirsten Flagstad, soprano
TRACK LISTING GRIEG
SIBELIUS
GRIEG
EGGEN
ALNAES
LIE
In her autobiography (The Flagstad Manuscript, 1952) Kirsten Flagstad tells of the joy she experienced on finding, when she began to give concerts in the United States, that the Americans so took to the songs of her native country, and particularly of Grieg. She herself had been brought up with them, and even included some in the program of one of her first professional engagements, at an Oslo jail in 1913. She was told that one prisoner due for release had asked to stay on till Easter so that he could hear ‘that girl’ again. This second volume of “The Flagstad Recitals” focuses on Grieg as well as other Scandinavian composers, offering songs with both piano as well as orchestral accompaniment. [Grieg Songs] “Listening to Mme Flagstad's recital makes one regret that she did not record more of her great countryman. The songs are varied and rewarding and her account of From Monte Pincio, one of the finest, is beautifully characterised as indeed are nearly all the songs on this record. I only regret that the quality of the recording was not better. The voice remains undimmed…" Gramophone "…what a marvellously fresh and original work Haugtussa is and how glorious is Flagstad's tone and characterisation! I do urge readers who do not know this song-cycle to invest in this record."
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Cat. No.: 480 1796 |
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Kirsten Flagstad, soprano
TRACK LISTING WAGNER
MAHLER Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
The third volume of The Flagstad Recitals couples music by Wagner and Mahler. Flagstad’s LP of Wagner scenes recorded with Hans Knappertsbusch is complemented by the “Todesverkündigung” from Act II of Die Walküre with Sir Georg Solti as well as the “Immolation Scene” from Götterdämmerung from a Norwegian broadcast performance conducted by Øivin Fjeldstad. Also included are the two Mahler song cycles Flagstad recorded with Sir Adrian Boult and the Vienna Philharmonic. In his booklet notes John Steane asks us to “remember (for it is easy to forget) that in this recording we hear the voice of a woman over 60. It is still possible to feel, as Desmond Shawe-Taylor did when hearing her years earlier in a concert performance with Furtwängler, that the ‘sumptuous, saturated tone-quality of this sort has almost vanished from the world’.” ‘It is wonderful to hear how the great soprano can produce the softest flute-like tone on a high G, fining it down to vanishing point’ [Mahler: ‘Ging heut’ morgen über’s Feld’ from Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen] Gramophone [Wesendon-Lieder] “…beautifully played on this disc, as is everything else, by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Knappertsbusch. Flagstad's deeper insight into the music shows particularly in ‘Stehe still!’ and ‘Im Treibhaus’ but she is very well suited by all five songs." Gramophone [Kindertotenlieder] “That glorious voice is heard here in a very fine recording, and Sir Adrian and the Vienna Philharmonic form a happy combination. And in any case, Flagstad sings these particular songs most beautifully; Lieder on this scale finds in her a fine and sensitive interpreter. Incredible that she was 62 at the time." Gramophone “Flagstad was a superb Sieglinde, and her glorious voice is perfectly suited to the rich inspiration of the Wesendonk-Lieder … one of the finest Brünnhildes of our time” The Penguin Guide to Bargain Compact Discs
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Cat. No.: 480 0616 |
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Kirsten Flagstad, soprano
TRACK LISTING MENDELSSOHN: Hear my prayer
The fourth volume in “The Flagstad Recitals” comprises two LPs Kirsten Flagstad made with the London Philharmonic and Sir Adrian Boult in December 1956 (Bach and Handel: CD2) and April 1957 (Sacred Songs: CD1) at London’s Kingsway Hall. The Penguin Guide to bargain Compact Discs praised the ‘sacred pops’ CD for the ‘vivid projection’ of Flagstad’s voice and singled out the ‘great majesty and weight’ of her voice. As with the sacred songs, the Bach and Handel items have a devotional aura of their own and this anthology is also unique for the first stereo publication of Bach’s aria ‘Sheep may safely graze’ and the first-ever publication of ‘Art thou troubled’ from Handel’s Rodelinda. Some of the songs featured on ‘Great Sacred Songs’ made their way onto a 45rpm EP which was entitled “Songs for Sunday” – from which derives the title of this compilation. Flagstad’s own religious beliefs remain unexpressed in The Flagstad Manuscript – there are no pronouncements about morality per se or about the immortality of the soul. How she lived her life speaks for itself, however, and so do the performances on this CD: songs not just for Sunday for but every day. |
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Cat. No.: 480 1892 |
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Kirsten Flagstad
TRACK LISTING WAGNER: Die Walküre - Acts I & III
In 1958 work started on the great Ring project with Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic at the helm of a crop of outstanding singers. For the first complete recording of Wagner’s tetralogy, and for the first opera, Das Rheingold, Flagstad was engaged to sing a role she had never performed before, that of Fricka. Producer John Culshaw describes: ‘At about 16.20 that afternoon we made our first test of the opening of the second scene and when Flagstad sang her fist line – ‘Wotan! Gemahl! erwache!’ – the entire orchestra turned round to gape in amazement, so extraordinary was the authority and power of her voice’. In the months of May and October the year before, she sang in recordings of Acts III (with Solti) and I (with Hans Knappertsbusch) respectively of Die Walküre. Culshaw had tried to persuade her to record the whole of Act II, but she was unwilling, and in the end put down the ‘Todesverkündigung’ scene (now appearing on ‘The Flagstad Recitals’ Volume 2). The Gramophone wrote glowingly of the Knappertsbusch recording: "…this account of Act I of Die Walküre remains essential listening for both aspiring and experienced Wagnerians, amateur and professional. From Knappertsbusch can be learnt the art of seamless Wagner conducting, the precise weighting of phrases, the ability to dovetail one to another. At the opposite pole from current interpretation in this field, his grand, spacious, emotion-laden conducting reminded me of just what one misses in so many of his successors. And what playing he procures from the VPO!" Act I was recorded in September 1957 in Vienna’s Sofiensaal, Act III, five months earlier in the Grosser Saal of the Musikverein. The Penguin Guide singled it out for the radiance of Flagstad’s singing and the ‘remarkably vivid’ recording under Solti’s thrilling direction. Act I was issued on Decca’s “Historic” series and Act III first appeared in “The Classic Sound” series, and the booklet for this reissue includes vivid recollections by John Culshaw on the making of these two recordings.
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Cat. No.: 480 1836 |
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Kirsten Flagstad, soprano
TRACK LISTING In glory of the heavens
Between 1958 and 1960 Flagstad served as general manager of the Norwegian National Opera, which had been newly established the year before. From her home in Kristiansand, she travelled to many Norwegian churches and sang small concerts there. These concerts were the result of radio broadcasts and recordings of Norwegian hymns – or, more accurately (in some cases, anyway), hymns sung in the Norwegian language – that were made over the course of three days in September 1956. Producer Torstein Gunnarson asked Flagstad if she would be interested in recording a set of hymns for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, and she readily agreed. The venue was the Ris Kirke, a church near Oslo, and her only accompaniment was the church’s organ, played by Sigvart Fotland. Flagstad had studied the hymns in the summer months of that year in her home near Kristiansand. ‘When it became known that Flagstad was singing hymns,’ wrote Gunnarson, ‘she received requests from many parts of Norway from people who wanted to hear her in church concerts. So, her hymn-singing in Ris Kirke was the beginning of many charity concerts all over the country.’ Fourteen of these were issued on a Decca LP in 1962, but the remaining 21 have remained unpublished – until now, that is, for the tapes were located by Decca archivist Jayne Byrne, resulting in more than a CD’s worth of Flagstad premieres, which now finds a home on Decca Eloquence’s Flagstad edition. "The voice we hear on the disc singing these fourteen hymns with such noble simplicity and sincerity is that of Flagstad in 1956, and the recording was made for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation in the Ris Kirke, just outside Oslo. Sigvart Fotland, the NBC's resident accompanist, precedes seven of the hymns with very brief preludes by himself and others, and varies his registrations in accordance with the character of the hymn he is accompanying. The balance between voice and organ is excellent, and those many who care for hymns will find this disc very appealing."
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Cat. No.: 480 2979 |
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Kirsten Flagstad
TRACK LISTING GLUCK: Alceste (1767 Italian version, ed. Geraint Jones)
‘I’m a classical girl, you know,’ wrote the legendary soprano Kirsten Flagstad in her memoirs, The Flagstad Manuscript, co-authored with Louis Biancolli. ‘Whatever Wagner may be, other music gives a different satisfaction: the music of Gluck, for example, or Handel. It’s the precise and orderly mind of these composers that I think appeals to me. The balanced style, the regular sections, everything in place. All of that appealed to my sense of tidiness.’ Though her return to the Met during the 1950-51 season was announced as her farewell, the new general manager, Rudolf Bing (later Sir Rudolf) lured her back for one more season by offering her Alceste, one day at lunch. ‘It was too great a temptation, and Mr. Bing knew it,’ she later recalled. Opening night, 4 March 1952, was a triumph. The composer Virgil Thomson reviewed it for the New York Herald Tribune and found her the ‘ultimate in stylishness. No singer living could have sung Alcestis’s arias with more sumptuous beauty of voice or a more impeccable respect for the classic line, their expressive rhetoric.’ In April 1956 Flagstad relearned the role for a BBC broadcast of the Italian version. Decca decided to record the opera a few days later using the same cast and version. Unfortunately Flagstad was suffering from a very heavy cold and was not at her best. The producer of this recording, John Culshaw, wrote in his book Putting the Record Straight, ‘I tried to persuade her to abandon Alceste despite the considerable expense to Decca of such a write-off, but her loyalty to her fellow artists prevailed.’ Flagstad in, perhaps, less that her usual stellar voice is still an extraordinary, mesmerizing artist, as listeners to Decca’s classic recording can attest. This reissue features an informative note by Paul Thomason on the genesis of the Gluck opera in Flagstad’s many and multi-lingual performances of this opera.
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Cat. No.: 480 0123 |
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Henri Helaerts, bassoon
TRACK LISTING WEBER:
The Decca Ansermet Legacy on Eloquence continues to garner the highest plaudits from publications all around the world and the latest batch presents the maestro’s recordings of four key Austro-German Romantics: Schubert, Weber, Mendelssohn and Schumann. This CD brings together all of Ansermet’s Weber recordings for Decca. Weber’s overtures possess an irresistible panache, being a perfect blend of popular and more highbrow styles. If his operas have proved largely unstageable, their overtures have maintained enduring popularity in the romantic orchestral repertoire. In fact, few were better equipped to distil the emotional and atmospheric essence of romantic lyric drama in terms of the orchestral overture than Weber. As Edward Dent once intimated, Weber never quite overcame a tendency to trump his vocal aces with an orchestral court card. But in the overtures he is the complete master. In them he spun poetic and intensely imaginative summaries of their ensuing dramas. The British LP issue of the overtures omitted the Jubel (Jubilee) Overture, here restored to circulation on its CD reissue. The coupling, the composer’s Bassoon Concerto, features Henri Helaerts (1907-2001), the principal bassoonist of this orchestra for nearly fifty years. Helaerts was a very popular figure in Geneva, where he founded and conducted Les Cadets de Genève, a musical group comprised of generations of wind instrumentalists. He was one of the principal representatives of the French bassoon with its very characteristic sonority, sadly disappearing today. "Ansermet is always successful with Weber's allegros by reason of his orchestra's lively playing and his own sense of buoyant rhythm… sheer pleasure, especially the sense of enjoyment in the playing of Preciosa and the remarkably deft performance of Abu Hassan, a piece notoriously difficult to play really cleanly. " Gramophone
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Cat. No.: 480 0078 |
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Edmund Leloir, horn
TRACK LISTING SCHUMANN:
The Decca Ansermet Legacy on Eloquence continues to garner the highest plaudits from publications all around the world and the latest batch presents the maestro’s recordings of four key Austro-German Romantics: Schubert, Weber, Mendelssohn and Schumann. This 2-CD set brings together all of Ansermet’s Schumann recordings for Decca. Ansermet’s Schumann is generally unforced and relaxed, with all but the Piano and Cello Concertos making their first international appearance on CD. In the Piano Concerto – a live radio broadcast recording with Lipatti, newly remastered for this release – Lipatti seems to drive the orchestra to new levels of excitement. As with many of the (relatively few) concertante works Ansermet recorded, the soloists are drawn from the orchestra – as is the case with Edmund Leloir, principal horn of the OSR from 1952-77, for the Adagio and Allegro, originally for horn and piano and, for this recording, orchestrated by Ansermet. Maurice Gendron, soloist in the Cello Concerto, was one of Jacqueline du Pré’s teachers. The Schumann concerto was one of his specialties; he frequently played it when he was invited to appear with orchestras. “Gendron's performance is instinct with poetry, and, with Ansermet, he achieves a lucidity of expression which is very taking … artistic integrity and understanding which is utterly remarkable” Gramophone [Schumann's' Symphony No 1] “…a wonderfully light and graceful performance” Gramophone [Lipatti's Schumann] “…a deeply moving performance. Lipatti plays con amore, almost as if aware the opportunity might never come again” Gramophone |
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Cat. No.: 480 0382 |
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L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
TRACK LISTING MENDELSSOHN:
The Decca Ansermet Legacy on Eloquence continues to garner the highest plaudits from publications all around the world and the latest batch presents the maestro’s recordings of four key Austro-German Romantics: Schubert, Weber, Mendelssohn and Schumann. This 2-CD set brings together all of Ansermet’s Mendelssohn and Schubert recordings for Decca. Adopting clarity and muscularity over homogeneity, Ansermet’s Mendelssohn has dalliance and grace, not to mention wit. The Schubert Rosamunde music is notable particularly for its gorgeously cradled B-flat Entr’acte as well as the Ballet Music No. 1, previously unpublished, possibly due to the limiting length of the LP side – the original LP coupling the Mendelssohn Midsummer Night’s Dream excerpts with Schubert’s Rosamunde. [Mendelssohn Symphony and Overtures] “…fresh, lovely and perceptive Mendelssohn playing, beautifully recorded” Gramophone [Midsummer Night's Dream & Rosamunde] “…enjoyable and musicianly performances…” Gramophone |
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