Richard Wagner - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - Frantz, Schock, Grümmer, Frick - Kempe 19564CDs - Mono ADD Digital Remastered
EMI Classics 1992
Performer: Elisabeth Grümmer, Ferdinand Frantz, Rudolf Schock, Gottlob Frick, Benno Kusche, Gerhard Unger, Marga Höffgen, Hermann Prey, Gustav Neidlinger, Horst Wilhelm, Manfred Schmidt, Walter Stoll, Leopold Clam, Herbert Kraus, Robert Koffmane, Anton Metternich, Hanns Pick
Conductor: Rudolf Kempe
Orchestra/Ensemble: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Deutsche Oper Chorus, St. Hedwig's Cathedral Choir, Berlin State Opera Chorus
"This famous set, its reissue long awaited finally makes its re-entry into the catalogue...Kempe's interpretation remains his version's main glory, a wonderfully consistent, life-enhancing view of the piece, unexaggerated in tempo, all of a piece structurally — just as it used to be at Covent Garden. No other conductor on disc, not even Karajan, surpasses Kempe in the long view, in generosity of phrasing, subtlety or rubato, or in a sharp eye for instrumental detail. In particular, the whole of Act 3, from Eva's entrance, after all the heart of the work, sweeps forward with an inevitability of pulse and a depth of feeling that warm the heart." -- Alan Blyth, Gramophone [2/1993]
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