This is really something of a Herculean task as anyone will know. I have also said in a previous post that a reviewer is only as good as the level of their knowledge of the score: which in this instance is much larger than the complete Beethoven Symphonies. So you really need to have spent years studying the score, and preferably also the libretto and all of its complex philosophical underpinnings. If you think you know the score, then you can always do better — some would say only having personally performed the work in its entirety will do. That is to say, I should probably shut up now rather than putting my foot in my mouth, or end up in the same dungheap as that most music critics belong on. That said, immodest though that may be, I am going to list at least some broad suggestions. I am going to put these in three categories: live cycles, studio cycles and miscellaneous (incomplete or historical) recordings.
1. Live Recordings of the Ring of the Nibelung
If you recall from a previous post, we saw Wagner say that under his baton the Meistersinger overture lasted a few seconds longer than 8 minutes, and the Tannhäuser lasted 12 minutes. Today, the Meistersinger overture typically takes 10 minutes and the Tannhäuser lasts 14-15 minutes. Some conductors are even slower. We also saw a letter in which Wagner said to Liszt that he was "horrified" at how "dragging" the tempi in Lohengrin were under Liszt's baton. Despite this, too many conductors take it upon themselves to have a dragging competition to see how slowly they can get through the score, under the mistaken belief that Wagner's music is supposed to be as weighty as Prussian artillery. It all seems integral to the negative caricature of Wagner as a composer of heavy 'Germanic' music leading performers to think the more ponderous and 'Germanic' the music can be made to sound the more authentic it makes it. Part of the reason why Wagner set up the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth was so that he could supervise performances, so as to avoid these sorts of mistaken dragging tempi, that Wagner noticed would creep into performances during his lifetime.
It is a genuine pleasure to hear a conductor like Böhm who does what Wagner says and refuses to drag his way through the score. In so many places, you look at the score and you see that Böhm really does justice to what Wagner has written. The results are totally electric throughout - am emotional roller coaster ride, plunging helplessly towards its inevitable tragic conclusion. The faster tempi almost certainly represent the influence of Richard Strauss on Böhm. Strauss, who was an assistant conductor at Bayreuth in 1898, once stated in response to the suggestion that his tempi were fast that:
It's not me who is faster in Parsifal, but it's you lot in Bayreuth who are getting ever slower. Believe me, it is really wrong, what you are doing in Bayreuth.
Nicht ich bin im Parsifal schneller, sondern ihr in Bayreuth seid immer langsamer geworden. Glaubt mir, es ist wirklich falsch, was ihr in Bayreuth macht.
Of all conductors, Strauss admired Felix Mottl the most, whose timings are fast by modern standards. Even then Strauss criticised Mottl for a bad tendency towards "slow tempi". Mottl's total timing for the Ring (14' 30") is actually only one minute slower than that of Hans Richter's at the premier (14' 30"). It should be kept in mind that there are some 208 remarks on the rehearsals of the Ring premier where Wagner felt that Richter's tempi were too slow: "nicht schleppend" is a common remark. Later, Gustav Mahler to was to join in the criticism of the increasing dragging tempi creeping into performance practice.
There is no doubt that Böhm's faster tempi represent an attempt to reinstate the older Bayreuth tradition.
The Phillips sound engineers have done a magnificent job capturing the sound in the Festspielhaus, although rights are now owned by Universal-Decca. The sound staging is superb. Böhm is the hero of this cycle, but the singers do his performance justice too. It isn't perfect — no Ring cycle is. For example, Siegfried's Funeral March sounds like it could have done with a studio condition retake. However, all in all this is the place I recommend that anyone first wanting to explore the Ring of the Nibelung turns to get the big picture of the work.
In the box set there are a couple of excellent essays on Wagner by Boulez and these are worth the price of the entire set. In it, Boulez rightly criticises the modern habit of inflating the Ring with a bloated and pompous grandiosity that is alien to the score. Instead, with Boulez you get wonderful sensitivity to endless music subtleties and beauties. The richness of the all woodwind writing too comes through in a way that is unparalleled. Boulez also has a rare intellectual grasp of the musical unity running through the work from the first note to last. There are also no dragging tempi of the sort that Wagner hated, and caused him to despair at times.
Above all, in the Boulez, as well as the Böhm, the intensity of the passion comes through in a way that far surpasses any studio recording. This, along with a sense of unity and flowing continuity, is why I also recommend that anyone start with a Bayreuth Festival recording, and not with a studio recording. The recorded sound is also very good, and clean, if not the ultimate in soundstaging and depth.
The stage production by Patrice Chereau has increasingly come to be regarded as an absolute classic, and is available on DVD. As time goes by the controversy surrounding the Boulez-Chereau Centennial Ring is beginning to fall away, and it is becoming to be recognised for the true classic performance that it is. You still see old fogies clinging to their mid-century type of pompous, dragging "Prussian artillery" Wagner clichée of the sort that made Wagner himself cringe, but hopefully they too will fall silent. Let anyone who thinks that Wagner actually wanted dragging tempi provide evidence of it!
Other Live Cycles
Other live Bayreuth Rings worthy of consideration include the recently released Keilberth stereo cycle recorded by Decca.
The best thing about Keilberth is that he does things the old fashioned Bayreuth way and refuses to drag his way through the score. The singers are generally excellent, and for some this will push this higher in their preference list. From an engineering point of view the sound needs absolutely no apology, although the Phillips Bayreuth recording is superior. As a conductor both Boulez and Böhm are much more sensitive and insightful with the score. Some regard the earlier mono Keilberth live Bayreuth cycle to be a better performance but the sound is much more limited. The Clemens Kraus cycle also has its adherents but once again, Böhm and Boulez are more deeply insightful interpreters who secure a generally better orchestral response.
Hartmut Haenchen in his Dutch live cycle was something I was looking forward to hearing, given his preference for the more fluid tempi found in older recordings, and his rightful condemnation of modern dragging tempi. He says he has used notes on Wagner's ideas on performance from his various assistents. However, the line still lacks the singing legato tone found in those old recordings he admires, but the orchestral sound lacks in refinement (under-rehearsed perhaps) at times, and the singing is not always stellar. However, he is to be congratulated in his attempt to revive the older Bayreuth traditions.
The recent live Bayreuth cycle by Thielemann has somewhat congested sound. The performance style is more in keeping with the somewhat dragging, grandiose style of the mid-20th century.
Now to Furtwängler. In 1936 Furtwängler took 14' 26" to get through the Ring at Bayreuth, a not unreasonable timing. By 1953 this had blown out to 15' 06". It is a shame better recordings of the 1930s cycles were never made. Nonetheless, there are still many beautiful things in the La Scala and Roman cycles. Unfortunately, all too often there is an impression of dragging at the wrong moments. I want to love the Furtwängler more, but after many years of living with these cycles, I am left deeply wanting. Ditto for the Wiener Philharmoniker die Walküre. In the end, Furtwängler represents a radical departure from the Bayreuth tradition established by Wagner himself of faster tempi
Lastly, Knappertsbusch. The 1951 Götterdämmerung is definitely worth hearing and in remarkable sound. It is heavy, pompous Wagner at its best. Unfortunately the rest of the 1951 cycle has never been released. There are also cycles available from 1956 and 1957 but in addition to drier mono sound, the ensemble is often scrappier (either under-rehearsed — or maybe even unrehearsed), and for many this rules this them out, since it tends to run rough shod over the immeasurable subtleties of the score. Wagner complained incessantly that Hans Richter took the music too slowly, but Richter's disciple, Knappertsbusch, takes an hour more to get through the Ring than his old teacher. I am sure Wagner would be turning in his grave. In fact, given that Wagner the conductor tended to be a perfectionist who demanded more and more rehearsal time, rather than less, I am sure poor old Kna would have been fired on the spot for being so lazy and refusing to hold rehearsals.
2. Studio Recordings of the Ring of the Nibelung
Karajan had gained experience conducting the Ring at Bayreuth before and this experience shows. This has sometimes been dubbed der kammermusikalische Ring or the chamber music styled Ring — note the -lisch ending on kammermusikalisch. Apparently Karajan hated it, and I can appreciate why, as there is drama aplenty whenever it is needed — it just never degenerates into bombast.
Now, I am not usually some huge Karajan admirer — far from it. I wasn't bowled over at first, but, after many years of living with this recording, I find I just keep listening and listening and listening. I can't stop listening to it. You keep listening to the Karajan long after your more mature understanding of Wagner has rendered Solti's bombast unlistenable. The most important thing is that the Karajan takes up the all important role of the Narrator — namely the orchestra — supremely well. As a role that runs through the work from first note to last, it is infinitely more important than any specific dramatic role by any single character.
As for the singing, there is a great consistency throughout, supporting the principle role of Narrator. Other recordings may have higher peaks in the singing department, but Karajan has wonderful consistency. In fact, as I have said, the better way of thinking about it is to think of the voices as sections of the orchestra. These vocal sections of the orchestra are allowed to be heard when they need to, and are never overwhelmed by the rest of the orchestra — the balance being always judged to perfection. Most importantly Karajan seems to have universally insisted on clarity of diction from all singers participating, so as to maintain a stylistic uniformity. I can even understand the chorus. This is never remarked on by English language speaking critics but Wagner regarded it as being of immense importance.
I have heard it said that Karajan used to take a mainstream German conducting approach to the Wagner, but then overturned tradition in his Berlin Ring recording. I have no idea where that nonsense came from. The 1951 Bayreuth Ring is essentially the same interpretation as the later studio version, except that the studio version is much more immaculately rehearsed and groomed, with a superior orchestra that makes an absolutely ravishing noise.
A good example where Karajan does superbly is Siegfried's Funeral March. The key to this is that it must be crowned by the Death leitmotif. Leitmotifs such as the Sword and the Siegfried leitmotifs try to rise up, but each time they are cut down by the Death motif, which triumphantly stamps out all other motifs that try to assert themselves. The trouble is that too many conductors are seduced into making the Sword and Siegfried motivs sound too triumphant, followed by a Death motiv that sounds like a sheepish "bah bah" rather than the menacing stamping motiv that is — the empty glitter of loud cymbal clashes not withstanding. The end result is that it sounds like the triumphant recapitulation of the Siegfried and Sword motifs, capped off by the sheepish braying of a harmless Death motif. O Death where is thy sting? Karajan is one of the few conductors within complete Ring recordings to allow the Funeral March to be rightly crowned by the triumph of Death. Solti fails here, as do many others.
The Karajan Ring is overdue for a more modern remastering. I am convinced there is more depth in the original tapes. Deutsche Grammophon seriously need to make a 24/192 transfer of this available as a FLAC download from their website. Failing that a 24/96 digitalisation will do nicely. The last transfer was a seriously ageing 20 bit version from around 1998 — which was not a particularly good vintage for DG transfers.
Marek Janowski - Dresden Staatskapelle
The great Dresden orchestra plays beautifully for Janowski, who really does justice to the printed score, bringing out the beauty and subtlety of the score like Boulez. The tempi mercifully avoid dragging the majority of the time — even Karajan is dangerously close to dragging too much of the time, but somehow his concentration and intensity manage to win the day. Once again, the singing is characterised by great consistency throughout, and has a couple of nice peaks too. The recording in a church is also beautiful, if falling a little short of being audiophile grade like the Culshaw Ring.
A typical example of just how good Janowski can be is his Siegfried's Funeral March. He does it better than anyone within the context of a complete Ring cycle, live or in the studio. He truly manages to crown Death as victor, and there is no danger of Death being usurped by other leitmotifs. Janowski also does a magnificent job of handling Wagner's leitmotif technique, at its most complex, in the final scene. It goes to show that understanding the music is much more important than being a famous, "star" conductor.
The only complaint is that at certain moments, it sounds like a concert performance in a church. I suspect Karajan's experience at Bayreuth has held him in better stead here. What matters more is Janowski's overall consistency and depth of insight. This is a very good Ring to live with. The last issue was by RCA, and the transfer is excellent. However, at the moment it appears to be out of print. Sony have issued Götterdämmerung, but the transfer, although crystal clear, sounds oddly anaemic, with a slightly constricted sound stage and bleached instrumental colours.
Other Studio Recordings
Barenboim (whose Ring was recorded under studio conditions in between live performances at Bayreuth) has his followers too, but I find his tempi just a little too dragging. In fact, he is even slower than Furtwängler in 1953, which is a shame, since Barenboim has a real feel for Wagner. The Teldec recording is not that bad, but nothing special either. Levine has almost managed to win the dragging competition (I fear Goodall might have won gold medal here) with his tempi (Wagner would be turning in his grave), but the Met Orchestra are so spectacular that it is often hard to stop listening, especially when the recording here is of audiophile standard. Haitink is also a praiseworthy Wagnerian and there are many beautiful things about his Ring.
The Culshaw Ring remains the quintessential audiophile's Ring. The recorded sound is spectacular and there is certainly more depth in the original masters than 16/44.1 transfers have been able to reveal. Pity about the conductor. Pity too about the excessively overpowering orchestra — an impossibility at Bayreuth — suggesting that this sort of balance is something Wagner wanted to avoid. Despite some good singing, it can become intolerable to listen to after a while. The bits that make it onto highlight's discs have enough bombast that they can often impress Wagner novices. However, the beginner interested in understanding the Ring as a whole should avoid it because you will be left with the feeling of an episodic Ring without any sense of musical or dramatic unity, because the all important role of continuous Narrator — the conductor/orchestra — has gone missing.
This is in contrast to the best budget category Ring cycle, which is the one from Hans Swarowsky. You can tell on every page that you are in the company of a supremely intelligent Wagner interpreter with his own interesting ideas. Even when you don't agree with him, you can see exactly why he is doing it, and you respect him greatly for it. Even the Prelude to Act III of die Walküre (the so call Ride of the Valkyries) is better than Solti — real rhythmic impetus, forward flow, and structure rather than just bumbling along with bombastically bloated brass. Alas, it is only available as a lossy AAC (low resolution-teenie bopper format) download from iTunes. If you aren't troubled with that, then please don't hesitate. This recording needs to be released in a higher resolution format.
3. Historical and Incomplete Cycles
The most important recordings here are not from complete Ring cycles.
It is often wrongly said that the singers here are the main stars, when really it is Bruno Walter who should get a large part of the credit. Most importantly: no dragging tempi! Nobody ever remarks on the tempi, because they never feel fast. That is probably a legacy of Gustav Mahler who was critical of the trend towards dragging tempi he noticed was creeping into performances.
The transfer from Preiser is remarkable, although the tape shows some deterioration at certain points. The sound quality rarely gets in the way of the enjoyment, even on high end audio equipment, where there is an astonishing amount of bloom in the sound and air around instruments. It is currently available in CD format through Music & Arts, although you can only download it in MP3-320 format from the Preiser website. Preiser seriously need to get their act together and offer high resolution FLAC downloads.
For some reason, everyone wants to talk about Furtwängler all the time when it comes to historical Wagner recordings, but I find Elmendorff has a far better feel for this composer. And I say that as someone who really likes Furtwängler. Elmendorff is much more lyrical with the lines and you really get the feeling of endless melody, despite the slowish tempi, which are close to Karajan's. I have even heard parts of the Furtwängler 1937 Bayreuth Ring with Frida Leider in Götterdämmerung, and still prefer Elmendorff. It's another example where understanding the music is more important than being famous.
There is also an almost complete Act I of die Walküre by Elmendorff with Maargarete Teschemacher as Sieglinde and Max Lorenz as Siegfried. This is almost as remarkable and it is a shame it is incomplete. Once again, the singers sing off the words, with the sort of clear declamation that Wagner wanted. You can understand every word, as though it were Shakespeare on stage.
Over the years I have had a terrible love-hate relationship with Toscanini - more hate than love, actually. His way with much music is brutal and shallow. I recently heard excerpts of a Haydn Nr 88 and I was horrified.
However, I see Toscanini as someone who is very picky with his music. Furtwängler did everything remarkably well—from Brahms, to Bruckner, to Hindemith, to Stravinsky, to Schoenberg, to Mahler, to Sibelius to Bartók. The list of world or national premiers to his name is astonishing. Not so Toscanini, who seems to hate most of the music he begrudgingly plays. I even think he hates the Beethoven 9th—he said he didn't understand it, and he wouldn't be the first to think the symphony was a mistake. Yet, he played the Eroica more than just about any other work and you feel that Toscanini really does identify with this score and his love for it shines through. Both in his farewell concert in Italy, as well as with the NBC, he chose to play Wagner. Toscanini used to offend his countrymen by saying he thought Wagner was better than Verdi, and his love and identification for the music comes through strongly.
For this reason I am going to recommend this NBC Symphony recording. His feeling for Wagnerian lines, with their endless melody is just remarkable, and easily preferable to Furtwängler in the Ring. Only in Tristan does Furtwängler really come into his own. Toscanini's 1940s live recording of the final scene of Götterdämmerung with Helen Traubel remains almost unsurpassed, and by far preferable to any recording of the final scene I have heard from Furtwängler — and that is coming from a lifelong Furtwängler admirer, and inveterate Toscanini hater. In those days, the rigidity that crept into Toscanini's conducting in his last years had not yet started to show itself. There is a textbook demonstration of classical Wagnerian styled tempo flexibility on show - like he had been reading Wagner's essay On Conducting.
In full blooded stereo and certainly not a historic recording. It is in this section because this Ring progressed no further than here. Leinsdorf was in an immeasurably more experienced Wagner conductor than Solti and it shows in every page and every note. Contractual issues meant that Leinsdorf would no longer be available to Culshaw, which is a truly great shame indeed.
It is a great pity that more of Monteux's Wagner has not been recorded for posterity. Culshaw overlooked him for the Decca Ring cycle due to his age. Here are a couple of short excerpts from Götterdämmerung recorded live with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In particular, his way with Siegfrieds Trauermarsch is pretty much perfect in the way he crowns the Death Leitmotif, which triumphantly stamps out all other rival motifs. Right from the first entry of the Death Leitmotif, the pacing and the way the vision unfolds is calculated to perfection.
Post-Script
Wagner's own views on rehearsing the Ring were noted by Heinrich Porges for posterity. These are seldom studied but are invaluable:
A nice overview and a good read. Much like yourself I'm not a big Karajan fan (though his Sibelius and Strauss intrigues me) but I find his cycle impressive in a lot of aspects, though I'm still warming up to it. Never really understood the praise for Solti, I've read before that he's as "subtle as a plumber's wrench", and though I suppose his cycle is quite well sung I've never really been one for the bombast.
ReplyDeleteUnless I'm missing it in your archives I don't see any Tristan recommendations in an outline such as this. I'm fairly new to the Wagner world myself and if you wouldn't mind I'd really appreciate a recommendation from a well informed person such as yourself. I've listened to Furtwangler's and Bohm's, but I'm not too sure who to approach from here. Thanks.
It took me a long time to appreciate the Karajan Ring. It is one that grows on you over many, many years. Is a recording that you live with and grow with. The fact that it doesn't bowl you over immediately isn't important.
DeleteAs for Tristan, again, my first choice is Karl Böhm. The tempi are more like what Wagner himself expected. Böhm naturally tends towards slow tempi but he likely learned of Wagner's dislike of dragging tempi from his mentor Richard Strauss, who conducted at Bayreuth at a time when adherence to Wagner's own instructions was still held to be vital. The sense of being on an emotional roller coaster hurtling out of control towards an inevitably tragic conclusion is overwhelming. Surely this is what Wagner wanted. I've tried to listen to other recordings over the years, but I often end up giving up and coming back to this one every time.
I am usually a big fan of Furtwängler and have collected just about every one his recordings I can get hold of, but I find the tempi a bit slow for my liking. I have heard some live Bayreuth records by Furtwängler from the 1930s, which are much more intense than this somewhat staid studio bound performance, but many consider his studio recording their first choice.
The other Tristan that has to be heard is the Karl Elmendorff (mono, early Bayreuth recording), although it is sadly brutally truncated. I actually prefer Elmendorff to Furtwängler as a Wagnerian (shock, horror). The sound there (from Preiser) is better than on the famous 1936 Reiner Covent Garden Tristan, which needs a better transfer than the scrawny one Naxos gives us. There is also a 1929 Albert Coates Love Duet (with an amazing transfer on the Great Conductors of the 20th Century series), that makes my jaw drop every time. Don't listen to it as it will spoil your ears for anything else.
Of modern studio recordings I quite like the Pappano, who is a very idiomatic Wagnerian, in some ways reminiscent of Elmendorff in the beauty of the line. If you're not a natural Karajan fan then his Berlin Tristan probably won't float your boat. You may still want to check out his 1952 Bayreuth Tristan—you will wonder if it is the same conductor that you have met in the Berlin studio recordings. I find the Kleiber to be beautifully played and sung, but a bit too well groomed.
I hope that helps.
Thank you for the fast and detailed reply. As for Furtwangler I too am a rather large fan but his Wagner Ring recordings in particular never really caught my ear. I'll be sure to check out the recordings you recommend, historical ones don't bother me one bit. I'll be sure to stray away from the "Albert Coates Love Duet" until I've heard a great deal of Tristan so it doesn't completely ruin it for me (I went into Beethoven with Furtwangler first, and it just about almost ruined every reading afterwards... Leibowitz and Scherchen managed to open me up though).
DeleteIt's a shame that Boulez doesn't seem to have any recordings of Tristan out there, I'm sure he could do some good justice to that work. Thank you again for the recommendations.
One thing I omitted to mention in my review of Ring recordings is that EMI Japan have released a high-end 24/96 SACD version of the Furtwängler 1954 Vienna Philharmonic Die Walküre. The sound quality is just amazing. Who needs stereo when you have classic EMI engineers with their vintage valve mikes and beautiful acoustics?
Deletehttp://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Wagner-1813-1883_000000000019275/item_Die-Walkure-Furtwangler-Vienna-Philharmonic-Modl-Rysanek-Suthaus-Klose-Frick-etc-1954-Monaural-96Hz-24Bit-remastering-Hyb_4042153
I have hoped that this would totally win me over to his Wagner...but sadly, impressive as it is in many way, I'm still not overwhelmed. Others feel differently.
It's nice to come back here and see where I was a few months ago on Wagner. It seems that I've become quite obsessed with recordings of Wagner in the days that have followed since my first 'serious' traversal through his works.
ReplyDeleteIf nothing else, I'm glad to have been able to realize how important fast tempi are in Wagner. I've tried listening to some of the slower recordings out there, and I can't stand some of them (with a few exceptions, of course). One of the conductors I have become very fond of during my run-through of Wagner recordings, was Albert Coates, whom you mentioned briefly I believe. His conducting is fast and has great bite, and it helps that he has great singers that accompany him on the "Potted Ring":
http://www.amazon.com/Wagner-Nibelungen-1927-1932-Potted-Cycle/dp/B000000WP5/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375283154&sr=8-1&keywords=the+potted+ring
Which is a great set, one which I highly recommend if you have not heard it yet (I imagine you might have already though). Also went through Furtwangler's recordings again, and I think I've come out with a deeper impression than I had initially. I don't like his 1953 cycle, but his 1950 La Scala cycle has many things that are completely lacking in his conducting during 1953 (which is a lot more meditative). There's an almost manic sense to it in many areas, Furtwangler's varied tempo is a very large contrast between slow/fast. In the slower scenes, he can take the slow extremely slow, but in he takes most of 'faster' parts at an absolute zip (end of Alberich's Curse/Siegfried's Forging Scene for examples). Sadly some of the singing is quite bad despite some excellent singers working with him, and the chatty italians are captured quite obnoxiously throughout the cycle. Still, an enjoyable experience despite it not being my favorite.
As far as Tristan goes, despite hearing many excellent versions, such as the Reiner recording with Melchior (truly awful sound, though I wonder if it's a bad transfer by Naxos or if the source material is just really bad), I think one stands out from the pile the most for me: Robert Heger's recording with Max Lorenz as Tristan and Paula Buchner as Isolde. What an emotional roller-coaster. And Lorenz, by god, I think I prefer him to Melchior as a singer. He's got far more bite and just as much stamina, and his delirium scene in Act 3 is absolutely jaw dropping in my opinion. And his diction... well, I can't say I'm TOO familiar with the german language, but to my ears I could 'understand' him, if you know what I mean. Paula Buchner is no Flagstad, but she sings the role with less nobility and much more raw emotion, which I feel is superior to Flagstad's interpretation. I believe the Heger is on Preiser, and though it was recorded in 1943 the quality is astounding (there are a few glitches in the recording though, during the love duet and near the end of act 3). If I didn't know better I would say it was recorded in the 1950s (though without the boxiness inherit in many of the mono recordings during that time), those Germans were certainly above and beyond all of their peers in terms of recording (hopefully those 2000-something stereo recordings during WWII will turn up one day).
Well, that's it for those two--at least for now. I imagine it's time to move onto Parsifal, which, I hear, divides opinions quite a bit. If possible, I'd appreciate a recording recommendation. A friend of mine has already recommended Herbert Kegel's "Parsifal", and I know that Knappertsbusch was quite famous for his interpretation of that particular composition.