The Definitive Ring of Wagner by Solti

For his Musik Drama, Richard Wagner had made it clear with his directives that more important than the singing was the acting and the orchestra accompaniment component. Wagner was concerned entirely with the outline of his musical leitmotifs that are woven in the fabric of this music drama. An Introduction to the Ring, the beautiful white box set presented by Derryck Cooke, still stays in my mind as the ideal introduction set for anyone visiting the Nibelungen Ring Drama for the first time. Cooke collaborated with Georg Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic. These recordings were engineered by Mr. John Culshaw between 1958 and 1965. Das Rheingold has to be one of the most famous of Solti's recordings. I have heard many Rheingolds in the past thirty eight years from Masters like Furtwangler, Keilberth, Karajan, Boulez and Maazel. They do not come even close to Solti. Solti and Decca have created a miracle. The `Gramophone' magazine has voted it in 1997 as the greatest opera recording ever made. I will agree with it. An extract of a review of Siegfried’s performance by Solti and Vienna Philharmonic: Reviews of the 1962 Solti’s Siegfried recording with the Vienna Philharmonic are positively overwhelming, praising the recording as a landmark achievement in sound and musical interpretation. Critics highlighted the exceptional playing of the Vienna Philharmonic, the stellar cast led by Wolfgang Windgassen as Siegfried and Georg Solti's conducting as magnificent and powerful. The recording was described as revolutionary for its time, considered by many to be the greatest recording of Siegfried and a pinnacle of the Solti Ring Cycle. Orchestral performance: The Vienna Philharmonic's playing was described as exceptional and magisterial. Singing: The cast was considered unbeatable with Wolfgang Windgassen's Siegfried praised for being both lyrical and heroic. Hans Hotter was considered more impressive than ever on this recording and Joan Sutherland and Birgit Nilsson were singled out as having legendary interpretations of their roles. Solti's conducting was hailed as powerful and magnificent.