R.Strauss: Vier letzte Lieder, Tod und Verklärung Op.24b; R.Wagner: Götterdämmerung (excerpts) - Lucia Popp, Klaus Tennstedt, LPO, BP

Richard Strauss:

Vier letzte Lieder, AV1501.

Tod und Verklärung, Op. 24b.

Richard Wagner:

Götterdämmerung - Orchestral excerpts

Lucia Popp, Klaus Tennstedt

London Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

EMI Digital CDD 7 64290-2

 

Two works by Richard Strauss are combined on a disc in balances of impressive depth and natural ambience: these are the Vier letzte Lieder sung by Lucia Popp, and Tod und Verklarung with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Klaus Tennstedt.

The very personal and appealing quality of Lucia Popp's voice immediately gives this new account of a work now very well represented in the catalogue an initial advantage. It speaks directly to you in a manner hard to describe, but it is the kind of very individual utterance that Jurinac had and, to judge from old records, Fide Norena. That, matched to an innate feeling for Straussian line and an almost effortless spontaneity of approach, makes this into a glorious version of a much-recorded work and equal if not superior to those admirable versions listed above. In such passages as the close of "Beim Schlafengehen" (where she adopts Schwarzkop's reordering of the words) and at "O weite, stille Friedel" in the last song, the incandescence of her interpretation surpasses even that of Schwarzkopf on HMV.

Depending on how you view the work, you may find Popp's reading more generalized than Schwarzkoprs - and therefore more akin to Soderstrom, also on HMV - or a degree more spontaneous. By comparison with Popp, Te Kanawa certainly seems a little four-square and careful in her CBS recording, for all the inherent beauty of her singing, and Popp and her orchestra are certainly better recorded than any rivals. Which brings me to Tennstedt. His tempos are all very slow, the last song stretching to an almost incredible 8'10", but playing the songs through first time without the stopwatch I was wholly unaware of the very temperate speeds. This proves that Tennstedt can sustain them with conviction helped by the LPO's playing, which has true Straussian bloom.

In the tone poem, apt coupling as both works speak of final things and the early work is quoted in the late one. I found the LPO less convincing, the strings here not the equal of those on several rival versions but again, Tennstedt's spacious reading has much to commend it.

(gramophone.net archive)

More reading about Lucia Popp : Here

More reading about Klaus Tennstedt : Here

Posted by Toni