Two Tenors and Two Symphonies, Slightly Mottled: Niall Hoskin rounds up recent Wagner releases on CD

Reviews of Ticho Parly Sings Wagner: Wagner ‘In fernem Land’ (Lohengrin), ‘Inbrunst im Herzen’ (Tannhäuser), ‘Nur eine Waffe taugt’ (Parsifal), ‘Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond’ (Die Walküre), ‘Ein Schwer verhieß mir der Vater’ (Die Walküre), ‘Nothung! Nothung! Neidliches Schwert’ (Siegfried), ‘Hoho! Hoho! Hohei! Schmiede, mein Hammer, ein hartes Schwert’ (Siegfried), ‘Dass mein Vater nicht ist’ (Forest Murmurs, Siegfried), ‘Brünnhilde, heilige Braut!’ (Götterdämmerung); Beethoven ‘Gott! Welch Dunkel hier!’ (Fidelio); Weber ‘Nein, länger trag’ ich nicht die Quälen’ (Der Freischütz); conducted Maag, Berlin, 1966 (Deutsche Grammophon Eloquence, 1 CD); Johan Botha: Wiener Staatsoper Live: Beethoven ‘Gott! Welch Dunkel hier!’ (Fidelio); Wagner ‘Hör an Wolfram ... Inbrunst im Herzen’, with Christan Gerhaher (Tannhäuser), ‘Atmest du nicht mit mir die süssen Düfte?’, with Cheryl Studer (Lohengrin), ‘Morgentlich leuchtend im rosigen Schein’, with James Rutherford (Prize Song, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), ‘Wehe! Wehe! Was tat ich?’, with Angela Denoke (Parsifal); Strauss ‘Amme, wachst du’, with Marjana Lipovšek (Die Frau ohne Schatten), ‘Zu dir nun, Knabe!’, with Ricarda Merbeth (Daphne), ‘Bin ich eine Gott, schuf mich ein Gott?’, with Soile Isokoski, Valentina Nafornită, Rachel Frenkel, Olga Bezsmertna and Daniela Fally (Ariadne auf Naxos); conducted Ozawa, Welser-Möst, Young, Runnicles, Sinopoli, Bychkov, Thielemann; Vienna, 1997–2014 (Orfeo, 1 CD); Symphony in C major, Symphony in E major (fragment), conducted Märkl, Leipzig, 2017 (Naxos, 1 CD).

November 2017, Volume 11, Number 3, 76–80.

The first two CDs under consideration here pose the basic question about the purpose of ‘recital’ discs. The disc of Ticho Parly was made in 1966 in anticipation of a glittering career: the tenor went into the studio to produce a kind of ‘calling card’. The Johan Botha recording on the other hand is a retrospective collection of live recordings from the Vienna State Opera spanning nearly twenty years until shortly before the singer’s untimely death. The first makes one wonder what became of the Danish-born Heldentenor, while the second leaves one wishing more of Botha’s performances were available in their entirety.