Do you mean that time in history? Or do you mean effect of the music on experience?🦻

@@Gamster420 Essentially the latter, though I am going so far as to say that the music *is* that apex of humanity.

What a beautiful, poetic comment George Park! You summed up all the things I find remarkable about Wagner. Indeed thank heavens for King Ludwig... and Wagner.

Excellent comment. Wagner(my gt,gt,Uncle) was fortunate I think that he did not get a piano teacher. It was a divine way to keep him from being being polluted by the limited, visionless nards of his day in music. Virgil Fox's rendition of it upon the Wanamaker Organ captures the harmonic and spiritual values like no other instrument on earth and in his hands lightens the soul.

Thanks, one of best comments I’ve ever read. But, pls don’t tell me u enjoy Schoenberg too?

What is amazing is how a person as despicable as Wagner could compose such beautiful music.

@@Shahrdad My Friend, what ever did Wagner do to you? He not only was a musical and organisational genius, but he was a social justice, democratic revolutionary. He almost lost his head as well as the good post he had as Kappel Meister in Dresden due to his socialist leanings. He was anti-monarchist, anti-capitalist and he was for the common man and women! I can't see anything wrong with that, so why do you? Maybe it cld be your lack of education that is the problem? I send you ,my best regards, Robert Fraser. Australia.

what about Bernstein?

oh yeah bro i totally noticed that

NOT

Really ? Try Toscanini some time

True. Nowadays, musicians seem to hurry through each piece of music.

The need for that b-major was set with literally the first sound, and the characters, singers and audience have been anticipating, waiting and yearning, for the entire five hours for that single ultimate moment of musical, sexual and spiritual resolution and apotheosis. Wagner was a terrible bastard but damned if this wasn't astonishing genius.

Knitting is meditation.

What a lovely story! Thank you for sharing this wonderful memory with us.

Thank you for sharing, and you are more privileged than you can imagine. My first experience of opera was in Stockholm with Elisabeth Söderström as the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro. In spite of the many wonderful performances that I have heard and that I remember, you have had a greater experience than many of us.

Amazing memory! Yes, what a voice. Almost the only one I know, but sometimes one strikes lucky with what Fate sends...

Mary Fallon I wish that I could have been with you that day! I was born in 1952 and wish that I was older so I could have seen the greatest dramatic soprano live in concert or opera! I was very good friends with her son-in-law the last seven years of his life, and that was a great honor and pleasure...

I envy you

True...Do you know this? Lohengrin : kzfaq.info/get/bejne/otebZ8WU06jVnKc.html Or Parzival ? kzfaq.info/get/bejne/btFkZKdq1dXWZpc.html

@@kyrieeleison35 I agree fully.

Sans doute le plus grand moment dans toute l'histoire de la musique.

Merci, Marc-Aurele ...............................

Well said, Marc.

Mon coeur vibre avec le votre, cher Wagnérien........

Un sommet ! interprété par Jessy Norman c'est également à tomber à la renverse.

very beautiful

Of course he did.... He is a genius

the climax is somewhat lukewarm and not convincing imho Not a good act of love.

Wagner speaks to my innermost being...

Yes. But love as a curse that could only be resolved through death.

I agree 100%!!!

Perhaps you were enthralled by Ms. Flagstad's participation?

@@oleflogger6828 That is secondary for me; vocals do not take priority. It is always the orchestral statement that matters to me.

It is a fairly apt soundtrack to the End.

Just like in "Melancholia"

Pentapus Your wish is granted, the end of the human race is already in progress so I‘m listening now😉

Ce prélude, je pourrais l'écouter en boucle.

95% of the virus spread would have been prevented if communism didn't exist in China. How many more lives have to be lost to communism?

+Andrew 80 PERFECT AND MAGICAL COMMENT...WILL REMBER THIS...

+Andrew 80 your comparison is right! what a singer, what a sweet and passionate heart, and I love the Jessye Norman version too, makes me cry of commotion !

Such a beautiful comparison. The sheer beauty of Flagstad's voice never fails to send a shiver down my spine everytime I hear her.

I love a good malted milk!

CB You are a poet. IMHO Liebestod is the single greatest piece of music ever written.

@@elizabethwallace7108 There are so many "single great pieces of music" to choose from. The Ciaconna from Bach's second partita. The marcia funebre from Beethoven's Eroica (Furtwängler and the Wiener Philharmoniker, December 1944). The Ricercare a 6 by Bach in the orchestration of Anton Webern. Verklarte Nacht by Schoenberg. And so many things outside the German and Central European tradition.

Thank you for this beautiful commentary.

The composer, and the musicians create that library for you. If you are really so grateful for it go buy records!

trolls. . even here . . just listen to the music. .

What a precious expression you mention! I absolutely agree with your opinion.

@@derya7603 But, Derya, i would never had learned about so many of these composers WITHOUT these KZfaq posts. Not to mention everything i learn from the thoghtfull comments of seasoned listeners!

@@MontoyaMatrix Exactly. I only learned of this through reading the comments in a Maria Callas performance. KZfaq is loaded with the worst examples of humanity, but at no other time in human existence have we had such a trove of treasures in the palm of our hand. This is magnificent.

Indeed...

I often think of beauty like this as redeeming us as humans.

You are my kinda people!

It is hypnotic. I spent a lot of time listening to it over and over when I was an early teen. Wagner. How lucky we were for him to have existed. Nobody else could have done it.

And we're still blown away by this cat who lived before our great grandparents. I don't believe in heaven, but Wagner certainly must have!

#Chris: What a great way to describe this. I kind of feel the same way about the conclusion of Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs. So beautiful that it makes you feel ready to go into the afterlife. "Surrender to the Ultimate" is an incredible way to express it. You hit the nail on the head with your observation. Congratulations!

Larry Mitchell I am a feeling being :-)

#Chris: Of that I have no doubt.

+vicky smelcer Thank god, that he gave you this gift. How many people are not able to sense "absolute beauty". They hear this, or Gould playing Bach - and it does nothing to them. I feel sorry for these people, I really do.

vicky smelcer La

True - I lick my wounds after a terrible argument online about Gould - with a pro too! - and now this Wagner (which I permit myself about once every two decades!) is solace indeed!

@johann supper me too it will come eventually...

A divine gift indeed ………...

thank you for the english translated words

Yes, Larry, it´s THE Performance. THE Gold Standard against which all others must be compared!!

I'm not knocking Kirsten Flagstad or Wilhelm Furtwangler, and this recording does justice to their legendary performances, though the primitive state of recording compared to latter days is becoming increasingly obvious through the years. I have listened to this recording many times, considering it the pinnacle it is, and treasure the original LP version of the whole work among my collection. However, I only recently came across Waltraud Meier singing this piece. I can't believe decades have gone by and I hadn't seen her before! She has had sensational write-ups across the continents, both as a "once in a lifetime" singer and for her stunning performances on stage, when she seems able to act incredibly AND sing like an angel! I'm now busy trying to acquire everything she's committed to disc and DVD - and there's plenty of it! Look her up! I'm sure you won't regret it!

@silverbud I agree

No doubt. It is STILL THE GREATEST RECORDING of this opera in existence. Indeed!

And her voice had already shown changes, and she was also suffering from arthritis, but rose to this occasion and it's wonderful. Simply amazing.

Alan, I was a teen-ager when I was introduced to this music, which was used in a movie about a selfish violinist and a needy lover who commits suicide, by walking into the ocean, as the violinist is playing a transcription of the music at a concert: I can’t remember the title of the movie, I do remember that Joan Crawford and John Garfield were the lovers! Since then, I have been smitten by this seductive, gorgeous, irresistible-it is too sensual to be divine, but it IS other-worldly!!!

me too

@@davidsolomon8203 Humoresque

knezzoran Thank you for reminding me of the movie title from so many years ago!!!

It does exhaust your heart - amazing music and performance

@Greg Jacques Lucifer's Jizz Gargler You say that like it's a bad-----oh wait, it is. Never mind.

FreeMySoles Th3 hell it does. Nearly everyone dies in this opera, no?

The use of leitmotifs related to each protagonis but to also the emotion alterning between the past present and futur. Love in musical form, ETERNAL ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

+Rodolfo MARTIN PARRA A couple of years ago I attended a perfomance of Tristan und Isolde in Bilbao. At the end of the performance, still day time, you could see guys in their prime crying like little children. Never seen anything like that in my life.

+Jose A Zorrilla Sounds like Portugal is my kind of place. Greetings from Norway. ,

våren

Rodolfo MARTIN PARRA 😪

Yo reservo las lágrimas para la música en vivo, jamás para las grabaciones. Tengo varias grabaciones del Tristán (Fujrtwángler, Bohm, Barenboim, entre otras) y todas son conmovedoras. En vivo he escuchado tres veces esta ópera, la última con Waltraud Meier y Sigfried Jerusalem (con Barenboim) hacia el cambio de siglo. Aparte de Flagstad y Nilsson, otras grandes sopranos wagnerianas de aquellos años fueron Astrid Varnay y Martha Mödl.

You are so right, Divine love is encapsulated in Wagner's eternal music. Yes, it brings tears but how lucky we are to have known such sublime love.

Traubel and Nilsson are equal to Flagstad. And Toscanini and Klemperer are equal to Furtwangler.

And she was 57 when she made the recording.

@@peterheisler4648 aunque sea utópico pero compositor de la talla de Ricardo Wagner se merece la eternidad.Es mi humilde y mejor homenaje.Dr.Roberto Óscar Leiva

Jack Wilton Just be more transparent with what you intend to imply here.

Beautifully said! Hear, hear (literally)!

aye. . . It's not bad fella m'lad. . . .

Brünnhilde jumped into the pyre, not Isolde.

@@jackdomanski6758 wrong, brunhilde is from Siegfried, not from tristan und isolde

lablous I know...well, more precisely: Brünnhilde jumps in the pyre in Gotterdammerung.

Love it.

And Flagstad, his favorite Isolde!

Well now, did we have any recordings before the 20th century? Hmmmmm?

Thank you!

anbd2016 I think you meant the 21st century. This was recorded in the 20th century...

Guys, he/she is saying that the claim that it is best best of the 20th century is meaningless as it is the greatest of any century.

@@oleflogger6828 Plenty, but most of them just over 2 minutes long and barely audible.

Yes that was a great scene. Poor Lady Marjorie and Charles Hammond - and Richard Bellamy. In a much later episode, really at the end, James Bellamy is listening to I believe Lohengrin before he leaves Eaton Square to end his life.

@@murrayaronson3753 Lady Marjorie died on the Titanic. That made me so sad.

yes...alwais i felt the same.

Je vous rejoins complètement

And well it should have: this recording is voted as the 100 greatest recordings of all time! You have a very understanding soul!

What the heck does that suppose to mean? Its an opera about 2 lovers, what does civilization has to do with this.

rober Acevedo My sincere condolences.

@@roberacevedo8232 Idiot.

Wagner is a reminder, nay a clarion call, necessary particularly today--a proclamation--that the white race shall go on forever, unto the stars above us, despite all the satanic forces of envy which wish us dead.

@@nonesuch27 Shut up Nazi

Are there any recordings of her singing with Caruso? NO, probably not. They were just a generation apart in time. And, Pavarotti came after her. Unfortunate.

Flagstad, Traubel, Nilsson, Melchior, Ponselle, Caruso, Callas, Bjorling, Corelli. They were equally great.

@Greg Jacques Lucifer's Jizz Gargler Nina Simone! LOL! --- Oh, damn, we forgot that one Nina Simone recording! -- Gimmie a break. It's not like anyone gave a SHIT Jessye Norman died. And she was one of the greatest Richard Strauss interpreters. Yet Jessye wasn't even in the NEWS. That how low our culture and level of listening has degraded. All banter aside, Greg, i'm not trying to attack your view, i'm just saying that this type of sining is totally a 180 from what Nina was doing. And, also, you are trying to compare little three and four minutes songs to intricately developed full-length musical compositions. Not the same thing at all. Which is what made me laugh. Nina Simone's live recordings are very important, and thank God we have them. But to try to "argue" that Nina Simon's recordings were of the greatest? What was meant by that is that it is one of the greatest interpretations of Wagner that was recorded. Nobody "interpreted" la Niña. Nina was Nina, and nobody else.

@Greg Jacques Lucifer's Jizz Gargler Thanks, Niña. Hugggs!