The Wotan here is Sir Willard White, not Simon Estes.

How can this be someones favourite?? This is not even mediocre!

How is this better than karajan or solti???????

Or Furtwänglers recordings

Symphony orchestras also often have an extra horn, for the same reason. (And it never hurts to have one more for the big, glitzy passages.)

What makes it difficult?

Bitte mal lesen, was Wagner dazu schreibt, d h von den Umständen, in denen diese magische Musik kreiert wurde im wahrsten Sinn "kreiert"....in seiner Autobiographie Aus meinem Leben

True 👍!!!...

So far Solti's Ring is my favourite, but the 2007 Theilemann (sp?) is a close second.

@@christacartwright9083 - Thielemann

​@@johnnyechoKarajan

It's fabulous - you'd never listen to that over-bloated Karajan again.

While I am second to none in my admiration for the Solti Ring, to call it 'the yardstick by which all Ring cycles will be judged' is the statement of a tyro who has heard none of the truly great Rings, or if he has, has failed to absorb their various excellent qualities. I love the Solti, but am not deaf to its many failings, which are mainly due to Solti's faulty sense of architecture and pulse. If the OP requires a yardstick, he would do far better to look to the various Bayreuth Rings, in particular those led by Krauss, Knappertsbusch, Keilberth, Kempe and Barenboim. He should listen to each of those Rings, taking careful note of the pacing, the ebb and flow of the music. When he has done that, he should end with an intensive study of the two complete Rings left us by Furtwängler. When he is finished, he should listen again to the Solti Ring and see if his hyperbolic opinion of it has not been somewhat altered.

@@jasonhurd4379 The Solti triumphs primarily in the then cutting edge stereo technology employed (for example the sheer excitement of moments like the thunder near the end) and such exemplary performers as George London, Kirsten Flagstad, and particularly Gustav Neidlinger,.

Most of *us...

I don´t think that this is the horn from Vienna. They had different valves...but I my be wrong.

@@lohengrin8133 You are correct these are not Vienna horns, but period horns. Yes, indeed these old horns will be quite temperamental.

Hei Sann die

I agree - there are textures that you just dont hear with a modern orchestra - the descent into Nibelheim is just so black and foreboding. The way the string players go at the gut strings makes one literally envisage the workers working on the gold. It reminds me the orcs in Lord of the Ring. Not to mention the imposing brass, timpani and woodwinds. It just opens another dimension to Wagner's music -AND the singers dont have to scream to be heard. Just imagine Nabucco or Macbeth on period instruments........

iskenderuna And screaming singers are my biggest problem with Opera...

How do you know Wagner would not have loved modern orchestras playing his music ? Gut strings sound awful enough in baroque and classical music , but in 19th and 20th century music ? Please ! And I'm highly skeptical about whether this performance sounds exactly or even remotely like the orchestras of Wagner's day . It's one thing to use period instruments in the music of the 18th century , but in Wagner ? Bruckner? Mahler ? It's interesting to hear what the music of Wagner MIGHT have sounded like in his day ? But this is exactly what this performance is . MIGHT have sounded like . The Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic, as well as the Staatskapelle, Dresden and the Met orchestra etc still sound magnificent .

Awful? I find gut strings enabling a much lighter, transparent texture and a much nimbler sound, and i still find their benefits (or at least these of playing with not too much vibrato) also in this late-Romantic Repertoire. The aim of "historically informed performance" is to APPROXIMATE the best possible way to play the Music of each period: even Scientists in their own fields talk about Theories, Scholars always are aware of their limits, whatever their research field.

If you are curious about, there's "Falstaff" conducted by Gardiner on KZfaq. And it might have been the very first time in Life i've truly appreciated Verdi.

I know, doesn't the timp sound amazing on period instruments? I cannot work out why things were modernized - the old sound is just so much more profound and dramatic!.

Well Rattle certainly did a lot with White in the 1990s I believe including a complete Ring from Aix en Provence, in which he is an extremely moving Wotan. I see a very wide gulf between the sturdy voiced yet monochrome and wooden Estes and the moving, humane White. I was never impressed with the famous Nelsson Hollander apart from the conducting and Salminen. Tomlinson, Morris and Robert Hale were all very good in their respective ways. The best Wotan on record for me is Norman Bailey, truly the voice of a God. But White is equally imposing and convincing and certainly looks like a Deity.

It sounds rad, but why did they choose to use a modern tuba instead of a period one, then?

@@jomarluke Interesting ??!!!...

I wish they'd be the first to record a complete Ring Cycle ...

So, Mr. Kyrie, you do wrong to the wonderful cast and the wonderful Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and it is not true that Solti is vulgar, it is only too clear and a little mysterious

for my taste he is utterly vulgar : vulgar playing, bad ensemble glitches. He is good in the mimetic sections - fire water etc. But for me the Ring first and foremost is about Stimmung - the long thread, and patience. Solti couldn't even begin to imagine what these were. Better listen to the superbly conducted SKD under Janowski, or any of Furtwangler's live recordingds. Solti's Ring is mostly about ego.

for example, he utterly destroys Walkure act 2, and Rheingold scene 2 and 3. There's no breadth, no long phrasing, it all seems like one long recitativo accompagnato, which is wrong, wrong, wrong!

Dear kyrie73 , Totally agree Janowski's 1983 studio recording is wonderful

kyrie73 Vulgar? Sneering at Solti is of course the fashion in certain quarters, but that doesn't mean it's correct. Excessive daintiness can be more vulgar than legitimate vigour. Wagner isn't meant to be played like Massenet or Rameau. And while this concept of "Stimmung" is constantly advanced, there's no real warrant for it in the score, nor does it have any intellectual justification. If anything, it blurs the constantly evolving texture of themes. It seems chiefly designed to protect complacent bourgeois audiences -- typically German operagoers -- from anything too stimulating, and reduce Wagner's constantly changing, fiercely emotive fire to a dull unvarying glow. Solti constantly brings the action to life, where Furtwangler, reflecting the static stage style of his day, reduces it to hieratic ritual; storms don't seriously blow, fire is no menace, sex and power are no more than mild disturbances. And while the older Janowksi isn't that bad, despite the imposition of a quota of mediocre East German singers including the superannuated Theo Adam, anyone who touts Furtwangler's recordings should set off alarm bells. The RAI one is static to the point of fossilization, with Flagstad a tired, matronly Brunnhilde and many other duff voices, with a muffled, lifeless recording and only moderate orchestral playing. And as for the La Scala one, one can only wonder what peculiar view of Wagner would lead someone to recommend a version that's dimly recorded, miserably played, crucifyingly cut, and vilely sung in many lead roles -- Alberich especially -- over Solti, which is none of these things? Ask yourself which of the two would be best for any newcomer to Wagner. Of course Solti's isn't the only way of interpreting Wagner. Conductors as diverse as Barenboim and Goodall are at least as good, and many others. It's only the unthinking sneering at Solti which leads me to advocate him so strongly. But what makes a real Wagner conductor is not Stimmung but Werktreu, the ability to portray theatrical drama, as distinct from a dully respectable concert in costume.

I feel the sound here is perfect and they are holding their pitch pretty well. I fear in Wagner's Day this would not have been the case. Certainly there was no standard "concert A" until well into the 1900s.

And fine voices.

Matthew Karns Stupid comment

WJohnM But three sopranos which is odd. Yes the Flosshilde is no true mezzo.

Always Have Been !!!...Even When Their Green !!!.....But I Am A Little Biased, Being From Atlantis !!!....

dass ist ein tolle Analogie! Das Auto ist kräftig und trotzdem schön. Mit beide Weisen, es schlacht einen Mensch im Kopf und magt er ja es.

Me too. Love the SKD most of all.

So you would then exclude all the great Scandinavian Wagnerians of the past century as well as Jon Vickers, George London, Gwyneth Jones etc. etc. etc.

@@NYCOPERAFAN Of them no one struggled with the pronounciations.

what??

Why, what? That's what this is -- and I agree, it is too rare. Unfortunately most of it is done in England, and one of the best period ensemble, the Orchestre revolutionnaire et romantique, doesn't do Wagner because John Eliot Gardiner hates him. There are a couple of discs by the New Queens Hall Orchestra if you can find them, but it seems to have vanished after a truly embarrassing live concert.

Gergiev is execrable in Wagner and in fact most non-Russian music. Not to mention as a human being.

I'm not sure, but i think she's Kate Royal. In the description of the video you have the cast, in case you want to check it out.

working conditions in a sunken orchester seemed to be not very good as I have heard. But a sunken orchester brought the audience closer to the stage.