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Editorial Reviews

Is this the greatest "Tristan" ever recorded? No: that would be Furtwängler's 1953 EMI recording. Is this the greatest "Tristan" by Carlos Kleiber ever recorded? No: that would be his 1982 DG recording. But, after those two, this 1974 Kleiber is arguably the greatest "Tristan" ever recorded. It has a sometimes terrific, sometimes merely tolerable cast, and sometimes distant, sometimes dismal sound, but it also has Kleiber and the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra and that's enough. Why? Because as anyone who's heard Kleiber's DG "Tristan" or Weber's "Die Frieschütz" or Beethoven's "Fifth" or Brahms' "Fourth" or Schubert's "Unfinished" already knows, Carlos, son of Erich Kleiber, was perhaps the last of the truly inspired and an inspiring conductor. As he shows over and over again in this performance, Kleiber can do things that other conductors can't conceive of, much less hope to achieve, things like driving singers to sing better than their best, like compelling an orchestra to play better than its best, like making a performance ignite beyond the imagination of any previous conductor. Want proof? Try the ecstatic Prelude to Act I or the ravishing Love Duet in Act II or the transcendent Love Death at the end of Act III. This is great Wagner, great music making, and great art. Your life is poorer for not knowing this performance. Your life will be richer for knowing it. What are you waiting for? James Leonard, All Music Guide

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