Otto Klemperer’s Wagner is mostly marvelous. At times, he can sound a bit too foursquare, as in his lumbering Meistersinger prelude, but then he also turns in a surprisingly swift and urgent Prelude and Liebestod, and he’s fantastic with all of the early stuff. Works such as the overtures to Rienzi, The Flying Dutchman, and Tannhäuser seem perfectly in sync with his innate blunt directness, and he also leads a lovely, unfussy performance of the Siegfried Idyll. Well behaved brass make the Act 3 prelude to Lohengrin more dignified than usual, and Klemperer obviously believes that the shortest possible version of the Ride of the Valkyries (less than three minutes) gives you all you need to know of this particular “bleeding chunk”, a decision we can only applaud. Now if only there were a similarly brief edition of the pointlessly repetitious and formally shapeless Forest Murmurs! Happily, “just the facts” versions of both Siegfried’s Rhine Jouney and Funeral Music do exist, and Klemperer chooses both of them. Careful remastering captures the vividness of most of the original recordings, even if it can’t do anything about their obvious age. Still, this is an essential Wagner collection and EMI packs a lot of music onto these two nearly 80-minute-long CDs. A classic, then, and a bargain to boot.
