Paul Paray

Paul Paray Conducts Wagner

Name: Paul Paray Conducts Wagner - Palm Beach Bookery
Brand: Paul Paray
Price: 23.98 USD
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$23.98

Paul Paray Conducts Wagner (Mercury Living Presence)

By Paul Paray Conducting Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Very Good Condition - Still in unopened Factory wrapping

Paul Paray made some great recordings with the Detroit Orchestra. This, however, is not one of them. And with so many fine Wagner orchestral only discs available from Toscanini, Walter, Karajan, Klemperer and Szell- recorded in the 1950's and 1960.'s, there is no reason to buy this disc done 1956-1960 and mastered for CD in in 1996.. The first three items on the disc don't match performances done by others and includes a suite from Die Meistersing which is not as convincing as Wagner's Prelude to Act 1.. The Rienzi Overture, the fourth item on the disc, is very good, but Szell's is better. The following excerpts from Gotterdamerung have no mystery and are in distorted sound; and the sound while good most of the time ends on this track with some obvious and strange manipulation from the engineers. The following excerpts from Gotterdamerung have no mystery and are in distorted sound. And so it goes . There's a Siegfried Idyll that sounds like a boring run through and the disc ends with an OK Tristan excerpt with magnetic tape problems that even my 79 year old ears can detect. The disc ends without warning but perhaps none too soon.
However, this disc is part of Mercury's big box Volume 3, which contains quite a few good things, including 3 other discs by Paray, some good stuff by Dorati and a performance by Fistolari that, in my opinion, is wonderful. For those interested in the quality of the sound of this disc. I should add that it varies from not so good to very good depending on which item one is playing. I did my listening thru Stax 09 phones.
In some, a disappointing disc from a conductor I like a lot when he's in his element.
If you wish to investigate Paray go for the French music albums which are classical classics.

Tracklist

Der fliegende Holländer: Overture by Richard Wagner

Conductor: Paul Paray