Strauss - September - Kirsten Flagstad

[GoetheGal]

This is MAGNIFICENT!!!! Anybody wanting to sing needs to listen to these great singers of the past and try to understand and figure out how they created sound. I am so grateful for these old recordings. With them, singers today have no excuse for singing poorly. Unfortunately, however, carelessness and interest prevail today. I pray for a revolution in singing, for a day when beautiful legato singing becomes the quest again for singers.

[karlakor]

This reminds me of the Immolation Scene from Gotterdammerung, in the harmonic progressions and the thematic material.

[Wavewolfaroha]

Just amazing music-making from three favorite artists: Flagstad, Furtwangler, and Brain. Thanks so much for the post, and sound quality is quite good even through my computer speakers! Tempo is perfect.

[MuscleDaddyCMH]

IT IS SUCH A RELIEF TO HEAR THESE AT THE TEMPO STRAUSS INTENDED and not the SLOW, self-indulgent dreadful tempi that singers do them so often these days, enjoying and falling in love with their own resonance. It needs COMPLETE LONG SENTENCES and phrases, not self-indulgence. Thank you SO MUCH for posting this, I lost my copy of this ages ago.

[CiboCeleste]

@MuscleDaddyCMH So true about this tempo! I love this... And although Jessye Norman also sings well, that videorecording, available here on YouTube, is just too slow...

[65attila]

Among the greatest performances of anything. The music ,singing and horn solo

are sublime

[gwirgalon]

Herzdank...from a time when conductors knew how to breathe with the music...these recordings despite the crsh crsh are always closer to the real sound of the voice than the cds, because the cds "level out" and skim off hte cream of the sounds..

[freespiritQC]

I have a feeling that is the closet version to what Strauss had in mind. No wonder he asked that super natural singer to do the première. He knew she had the artistry to understand his music.

I hate those new mashmallow versions of it or the very deep and dramatic ones.

[VivaRenata]

Thanks for posting! I also featured one of the songs from Strauss's Vier Letzte Lieder on the memorial program about Flagstad that I produced for Swedish Classical Radio (P2) 1995. I too said something about the poor sound quality of this recording, which nevertheless is so important musically once the listener "edits out" the scratches.

[erstehorniste]

This is a beautiful performance as is the Janowitz version. Both Seifert and Brain are at their best. But my favorite remains the Schwarzkopf recording with George Szell and the Berlin Radio Orchestra. I have always heard that the horn player on that recording was Barry Tuckwell. Regardless of who, it is absolutely the purest and most beautiful rendition of this piece, IMHO.

[60ECg]

Thanks for posting, Flagstad is excellent, as is Dennis Brain in the solo horn part at the end.

[lamusicahera]

BRAVA!

FANTASTIC!

GREAT!

[moosatious]

Somewhere I have a CD issue of this, and this sounds much better. I've heard much worse sound quality (e.g., the Maria Callas Parsifal-- sung in Italian) and bore with it. Thank you for posting!

[shigeakw]

I don't like this. It's too simple, too fast. Janowitz-Karajan-BerlinerPhilh­armoniker is far better. So is solo horn.

[violinthief]

I love Janowitz, and the Four Last Songs with Karajan are superb. The solo horn in that recording is Gerd Seifert. He would certainly be in my top 10 list of greatest horn players ever, but Brain is my #1. Incidentally, Karajan, who conducted both, would agree. In over 50 years of conducting, Brain is the only orchestral musician he called on by his first name. Listen to Seifert's and Brain's Mozart concertos, both with Karajan directing, and you'll hear the difference.

[rsklav]

violinthief,

I would really like to thank you for posting this video. I could never imagine that I would be able to listen to Flagstad performing the four last songs...

Thanks again!!!

If only you could upload Fruhling aswell!!!

[jpmitri]

Ich auch! Ich möchte Frühling haben!!

[mariasarda]

Une impératrice de l'opéra, à la voix tranchante et glaçante. Une majesté wagnérienne et straussienne de première grandeur !

[TheEdibleDormouse]

What perfect sense she makes of it. A great artist.

[brassbend]

I feels so stupid. My teacher took lessons with Brain and I NEVER took a bunch of Brain's recordings over to his house and ask him which one really sounded like Brain. In almost every recording his tone sounds different because of the hall, mikes and such. I wonder if he really sounded like this. Someone needs to do a project on this!

[gustavopardo]

FANTASTIC!!! and is not such a bad recording, in terms of sound quality, THANK FOR POSTING IT

[paulostroff99]

Heavenly music and singing! Bravo!

[billyguns2]

This is the dress rehearsal for the World Premiere of this music; the recorded sound quality is not too good, but we are fortunate to have this at all, featuring Furtwangler, one of the very greatest conductors of all time, and the marvelous Flagstad! There is never a hint of mechanical structure in their music making; it all sounds spontaneous, alive, and expressive!

[violinthief]

Thanks for the comment, but this recording is from the actual concert, according to my source material. In the past, it was incorrectly identified as the dress rehearsal, thus the confusion. You probably have the other source.

[billyguns2]

Thanks for the correction; it's even more exciting knowing this is the actual first performance!

[all276]

Congratulations, Norway ! One of the best singers ever. In Sweden we pride ourselves with our own soprano Birgit Nilsson but cannot compare to Flagstedt. We were lucky to have the tenor Björling. This interpretation is outstanding !

[VivaRenata]

Wonderful that there is one Swede besides myself who will say congratulations to Norway for the greatest dramatic soprano of all times - Kirsten Flagstad. Just a suggestion - find some of her recordings from the late 1940's with Set Svanholm, the best "Siegmund" I've heard so far and that is something we can really be proud of. Hälsningar!

[Johnny1206]

The best singer ever in one of the most inspired pieces !!!