I heard 'Tristan und Isolde' in Berlin (Deutsche Oper) in 1981, and bawled my eyes out like never before at Isolde's 'Liebestot'. Why? People die of love -- shattered, broken-hearted -- every day. We must cease inflicting those 'thousand cuts' upon each other. AMEN.
the wonderful thing about Wagner's music is that it is ALL his. He was not accepted at musical academies for instruction, he couldn't find a piano teacher that would instruct him, so he taught himself piano and learned to compose on his own. His music comes from inside his soul. He performed his own research, wrote his own libretti, devised his own plots, designed his own opera house to play his music dramas inside. He believed that the world owed him a living for the beautiful creations he wove into existence and he was probably correct. Fortunately, he lived during a time when just such a person lived who would provide the money needed. Thank heaven for King Ludwig
What a beautiful, poetic comment George Park! You summed up all the things I find remarkable about Wagner. Indeed thank heavens for King Ludwig... and Wagner.
Excellent comment. Wagner(my gt,gt,Uncle) was fortunate I think that he did not get a piano teacher. It was a divine way to keep him from being being polluted by the limited, visionless nards of his day in music. Virgil Fox's rendition of it upon the Wanamaker Organ captures the harmonic and spiritual values like no other instrument on earth and in his hands lightens the soul.
@@Shahrdad My Friend, what ever did Wagner do to you? He not only was a musical and organisational genius, but he was a social justice, democratic revolutionary. He almost lost his head as well as the good post he had as Kappel Meister in Dresden due to his socialist leanings. He was anti-monarchist, anti-capitalist and he was for the common man and women! I can't see anything wrong with that, so why do you? Maybe it cld be your lack of education that is the problem? I send you ,my best regards, Robert Fraser. Australia.
Have you ever noticed that in the 1950’s and 60’s that all operas were played much slower than they are today? It’s so refreshing to sit and hear them played the way they were written.
The cadence in the final measures, when the tristan chord is reprised one last time, heavily disturbing the 'hopeful' key the final singing pitch settled in and then after all resolving into the final b major while you are still awestruck by the sound of Kirstens voice is almost unbearable, gets me every time - there is so much in there. You can feel all the joy and sadness at once. This is the absolute pinnacle of music for me. Genius. EDIT: Imagine Wagner would have ended the whole thing on the tristan chord without resolving into b major. This would have driven people into insanity.
The need for that b-major was set with literally the first sound, and the characters, singers and audience have been anticipating, waiting and yearning, for the entire five hours for that single ultimate moment of musical, sexual and spiritual resolution and apotheosis. Wagner was a terrible bastard but damned if this wasn't astonishing genius.
I can never forget the picture of recording with Flagstad painted by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau....he said the orchestra would play, and Flagstad would be knitting away until she heard her cue. She would put her knitting aside, stand up, and let loose with the most incredible high notes, beautifully sung, and then she’d sit down, pick up her knitting, and keep going until her next entrance! “Knitting for grandchildren!” F-D explained, his eyes dancing!
Rarement on rencontre une symbiose totale entre la voix et l'orchestre . Furtwangler et Flagstad nous offre un moment sublime , inégalé dans l'histoire du chant . Ce moment béni transcende nos pauvres existences , et l'epoque médiocre et anxiogène que nous vivons . L'art demeure cette fenêtre ouverte vers l'infini...
As an enraptured girl of 12yrs old, I met the towering woman that was Kirsten Flagstad and was rendered speechless by the bravura performance at Manchester's Free Trade Hall. At the Stage door, she presented me with a yellow rose (rare in 1952 Manchester) from her bouquet. But Michael, you are right, as a regular attendee of Glyndebourne, no one has come up to the stunning voice of Flagstad for me though many reach perfection. But she was peerless, stunning and I suppose that as a first experience for an impressionable little girl that would always be so.
Thank you for sharing, and you are more privileged than you can imagine. My first experience of opera was in Stockholm with Elisabeth Söderström as the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro. In spite of the many wonderful performances that I have heard and that I remember, you have had a greater experience than many of us.
Mary Fallon I wish that I could have been with you that day! I was born in 1952 and wish that I was older so I could have seen the greatest dramatic soprano live in concert or opera! I was very good friends with her son-in-law the last seven years of his life, and that was a great honor and pleasure...
The first time I heard Liebestod I was in a van with friends heading off for a day of shopping; riding 'shotgun' I got to choose the radio station and picked a local classical station, which was airing the opera. It was late in Act III when I tuned in. We were talking and I confess I wasn't paying much attention to the music until - Liebestod. I began to weep, sobbing, unable to speak - you know, I am sure. I have more control these days, but this performance takes me right back to that van with tears rolling down my face. Brava! And thank you for sharing it.
It is hypnotic. I spent a lot of time listening to it over and over when I was an early teen. Wagner. How lucky we were for him to have existed. Nobody else could have done it.
This piece connects me to so many things - my breath, my grief, my passions, my longing....the melody flows through my soul and takes me on this journey that is so fulfilling. And I feel every part of me is considered and transformed. Music is so magical.
Nothing, I mean nothing moves me as much as this! Wagner makes you feel emotions you haven't had since childhood, then has you experience new emotions you never knew you had.
I have been hearing this opera since I was seventeen years old and it s now 46 years and I have not come across any performance like Furtwangler's in these 63 years of mine. This will always be my # 1 performance.
I agree with you Mark. This piece always brings me to tears. It was cultivated within a divine shell like a perfect pearl, a celestial inspiration. It has such unexpected harmonics and the music opens around her voice like a choir of sympathetic angels. It just goes on melting the heart until the spirit ascends into the top of the head vibrating. More beautiful than the rising sun, more luminous than a divine light encased in crystal, set forever in a niche of lights. As tragic as blighted love pouring down a cliff in a rushing waterfall.
@@elizabethwallace7108 There are so many "single great pieces of music" to choose from. The Ciaconna from Bach's second partita. The marcia funebre from Beethoven's Eroica (Furtwängler and the Wiener Philharmoniker, December 1944). The Ricercare a 6 by Bach in the orchestration of Anton Webern. Verklarte Nacht by Schoenberg. And so many things outside the German and Central European tradition.
CZcams -- A platform creating the greatest avenue ever developed by human beings for providing absolute joy to other human beings who could never have experienced that joy without it. It feels like a library for my soul.
@@derya7603 But, Derya, i would never had learned about so many of these composers WITHOUT these CZcams posts. Not to mention everything i learn from the thoghtfull comments of seasoned listeners!
@@MontoyaMatrix Exactly. I only learned of this through reading the comments in a Maria Callas performance. CZcams is loaded with the worst examples of humanity, but at no other time in human existence have we had such a trove of treasures in the palm of our hand. This is magnificent.
+Andrew 80 your comparison is right! what a singer, what a sweet and passionate heart, and I love the Jessye Norman version too, makes me cry of commotion !
It is clear in my mind that this is the most beautiful music or sound ever recorded, nothing can ever surpass this in beauty of sound. It is an everlasting sound and thus; ever-giving. It has infinite moods and yet just one. It shows fear, sadness, despair, hope, boldness and eternal euphoria, yet it is merely the sound of love. Tristan and Iseult might not be my favorite love story, but Wagner has put scribbles on paper to the sound that all lovers have, do, and will know if they love, and hearing this means you have a heart, and tearing up means you have felt true love. It is the sound of infinite, selfless, giving, caring, passionate, eternal, unsurpassed love and nothing more; what else could you want...
What a wonderful vocal range Kirsten Flagstad had. Liebestod is rapture for the ears. How wonderful to hear it again. A great piece of music and a great voice. Thank you.
The iconic Flagstad and Furtwanger 1952 EMI recording ----- STILL the greatest recording of this opera in existence. One of the greatest recordings in the history of the music. Furtwangler was THE Wagner conductor and Flagstad, at age 57 (she was born in 1895!), continued to maintain her golden and shining instrument to make this never-to-be beaten complete recording. It's always a pleasure to hear this magical recording, around which all subsequent recordings must revolve around. A miracle all around.
I'm not knocking Kirsten Flagstad or Wilhelm Furtwangler, and this recording does justice to their legendary performances, though the primitive state of recording compared to latter days is becoming increasingly obvious through the years. I have listened to this recording many times, considering it the pinnacle it is, and treasure the original LP version of the whole work among my collection. However, I only recently came across Waltraud Meier singing this piece. I can't believe decades have gone by and I hadn't seen her before! She has had sensational write-ups across the continents, both as a "once in a lifetime" singer and for her stunning performances on stage, when she seems able to act incredibly AND sing like an angel! I'm now busy trying to acquire everything she's committed to disc and DVD - and there's plenty of it! Look her up! I'm sure you won't regret it!
#Chris: What a great way to describe this. I kind of feel the same way about the conclusion of Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs. So beautiful that it makes you feel ready to go into the afterlife. "Surrender to the Ultimate" is an incredible way to express it. You hit the nail on the head with your observation. Congratulations!
Mildly and gently, how he smiles, how the eye he opens sweetly --- Do you see it, friends? Don’t you see it? Brighter and brighter how he shines, illuminated by stars rises high? Don’t you see it? How his heart boldly swells, fully and nobly wells in his breast? How from his lips delightfully, mildly, sweet breath softly wafts --- Friends! Look! Don’t you feel and see it? Do I alone hear this melody, which wonderfully and softly, lamenting delight, telling it all, mildly reconciling sounds out of him, invades me, swings upwards, sweetly resonating rings around me? Sounding more clearly, wafting around me --- Are these waves of soft airs? Are these billows of delightful fragrances? How they swell, how they sough around me, shall I breathe, Shall I listen? Shall I drink, immerse? Sweetly in fragrances melt away? In the billowing torrent, in the resonating sound, in the wafting Universe of the World-Breath --- drown, be engulfed --- unconscious --- supreme delight!
Me da mucha pena que en mi pais Mexico, no haya una sola persona que opine de esta obra cumbre de la musica. Wagner fue el rival mas famoso de Verdi, sin embargo compuso este bellisimo poema musical exaltando el romance entre tristan e isolda, personajes miticos, y de alguna manera se adelanto al ruso tchaikovski quien le dio vida al poema musical Romeo y Julieta que es bellisimo tambien, a mis 75 años los he escuchado no menos de cien veces y nunca me cansare de volverlos a oir, felicidades y gratitud para quien nos gratifica con estas obras geniales.
+vicky smelcer Thank god, that he gave you this gift. How many people are not able to sense "absolute beauty". They hear this, or Gould playing Bach - and it does nothing to them. I feel sorry for these people, I really do.
True - I lick my wounds after a terrible argument online about Gould - with a pro too! - and now this Wagner (which I permit myself about once every two decades!) is solace indeed!
Thank you so much for posting this. Wagner pulls back the veil and gives us a glimpse of the eternal loveliness at the core of things. This music will never die, it cannot. It will live forever, and it tells us that we do too.
The use of leitmotifs related to each protagonis but to also the emotion alterning between the past present and futur. Love in musical form, ETERNAL ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Get the Kleenex ready. Just as Baudelaire wrote to him in a famous piece of fan mail with no return address; Baudelaire's postscript: "I do not set down my address because you might think I wanted something from you." And because Wagner had already given him everything: "Quite often I experienced a sensation of a rather bizarre nature, which was the pride and the joy of understanding, of letting myself be penetrated and invaded - a really sensual delight that resembles that of rising in the air or tossing upon the sea. And the music at the same time would now and then resound with the pride of life. Generally these profound harmonies seemed to me like those stimulants that quicken the pulse of the imagination… There is everywhere something rapt and enthralling, something aspiring to mount higher, something excessive and superlative." February 17, 1860
El eterno e hipnótico Wagner. El si sabia como detener el tiempo y llevarnos a otra dimension. Agradezco haber pasado por la vida sin que esta música pase de largo de mi.
What a performance. You can hear their connection to their tradition and history, to a tradition of musical interpretation and performance. It's something that can't be matched in merely note-perfect performances. Something of the European soul.
This has to be one of the most evocative and transcendent pieces of art ever produced. There are romantic composers and then there is Wagner: he is immutable and absolute in his mastery of the human condition. This tour-de-force makes it easy to understand why Isolde would gladly jump into that burning funeral pyre--- to hear this music play!
I've listened to this piece without the singing, and while still a beautiful work, it's Flagstad's golden voice laden with emotion that makes it divine and never fails to move me to tears.
Es imposible oir "esto"a la Flagstad sin llorar. Tengo la grabación desde hace 40 años y siempre, siempre hay lagrimas...y seguirá habiendolas, mientras yo siga con vida.
+Rodolfo MARTIN PARRA A couple of years ago I attended a perfomance of Tristan und Isolde in Bilbao. At the end of the performance, still day time, you could see guys in their prime crying like little children. Never seen anything like that in my life.
Yo reservo las lágrimas para la música en vivo, jamás para las grabaciones. Tengo varias grabaciones del Tristán (Fujrtwángler, Bohm, Barenboim, entre otras) y todas son conmovedoras. En vivo he escuchado tres veces esta ópera, la última con Waltraud Meier y Sigfried Jerusalem (con Barenboim) hacia el cambio de siglo. Aparte de Flagstad y Nilsson, otras grandes sopranos wagnerianas de aquellos años fueron Astrid Varnay y Martha Mödl.
Alan, I was a teen-ager when I was introduced to this music, which was used in a movie about a selfish violinist and a needy lover who commits suicide, by walking into the ocean, as the violinist is playing a transcription of the music at a concert: I can’t remember the title of the movie, I do remember that Joan Crawford and John Garfield were the lovers! Since then, I have been smitten by this seductive, gorgeous, irresistible-it is too sensual to be divine, but it IS other-worldly!!!
I wonder how many "Upstairs Downstairs " fans we have. Every tear my Mom and I watched the whole series. It was a ritual. Shes gone now.There is a scen where The mother of the show has gone to the opera with a friend of her son. They have had an affair. On this noght she will come to her senses. And the strains of this beautiful music punctuate every tear that covered my face. It was over. It couldnt be. Her husband knew but never said a word. She knew her place. She was a great lady. I remember my Mama when I hear this and our special evenings in her dementia ridden years. The show was always new to her.
Yes that was a great scene. Poor Lady Marjorie and Charles Hammond - and Richard Bellamy. In a much later episode, really at the end, James Bellamy is listening to I believe Lohengrin before he leaves Eaton Square to end his life.
Wagner is a reminder, nay a clarion call, necessary particularly today--a proclamation--that the white race shall go on forever, unto the stars above us, despite all the satanic forces of envy which wish us dead.
@@peterheisler4648 aunque sea utópico pero compositor de la talla de Ricardo Wagner se merece la eternidad.Es mi humilde y mejor homenaje.Dr.Roberto Óscar Leiva
Je crois défaillir à chaque fois que j'écoute ce passage, il est d'une telle intensité dramatique qu'il m'est impossible d'arrêter mes larmes de couler. Cet enregistrement de Furtwängler est réellement exceptionnel et Flagstad est fantastique. Le génie de Wagner servi par de tels interprètes, c'est le summum.
Mind you, the sublime Flagstad was fifty-seven years old when she did this complete Tristan & Isolde recording in 1952, and was to continue to make recordings for Decca in stereo in the late 1950's when she herself was already in her early sixties. Who can sing like this NOW???????? No one, of course. Only Birgit Nilsson sang on the level of Flagstad. The two of them constitute the best in Wagnerian singing in the Twentieth Century.
Agree with you. This week we have Tristan und Isolde in concert version, with Waltraud Meier, Peter Seiffert, Ekaterina Gubanova and Rene Pape (Isolde, Tristan, Bragane and Marke), directed by argentine Daniel Barenboim with his Divan Orchestra. Also piano with Barenboim and another argentine Martha Argerich, together. Awesome!!!! Colon Theater, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Argentine kissis!!!!
Flagstad never needed to fear anything in the Liebestod. There is nothing in this gorgeous transfiguration piece that rises above an A, a note which Flagstad could command until the end. The two lightning high Cs when the lovers meet in Act II is a different matter. They're so fast and short that they can be left out altogether. Traubel never sang them either, and neither did a lot of others. It's really no big deal. I can't understand why these two insignificant top Cs have taken on such importance. They mean nothing. They didn't need Schwarzkopf because the notes could have been left out from the outset.
The three Isoldas I've heard sing this live in full performances of this opera are Ingrid Haebler, Montserrat Caballé and Waltraud Meier. The most recent was Meier, in the year 2000 with Siegfried Jerusalem and Barenboim. I don't remember any of them distinctly (I mean the vocal performances).
Don't overlook Hans Knappertsbusch. He stands at the same level as Furtwängler. Check out his Parsifal and his Ring from Bayreuth (I have the 1956 cycle, but there are also recordings from 1957 and 58). The other two Rings I have are by Furtwängler and Joseph Keilberth. All three from the 1950s.
I my God I have cried hearing the Liebestod, I don't cry since I heard the 4th movement of the 6th symphony of Tchaikovsky. :) Simply shuddering, one of my favourite pieces of music of all time...
Are there any recordings of her singing with Caruso? NO, probably not. They were just a generation apart in time. And, Pavarotti came after her. Unfortunate.
Maravilloso! Furtwängler captura toda mi emoción y Kirsten Flagstad una de las mejores sopranos dramáticas que he escuchado haciendo honor a las óperas wagnerianas!
What an historical record. The music and the performance are a miracle. Indeed. One of the greatest recordings of the century. I also like Szell/Cleveland and Waltraud Meier for Tristan und Isolde.
@Greg Jacques Lucifer's Jizz Gargler Nina Simone! LOL! --- Oh, damn, we forgot that one Nina Simone recording! -- Gimmie a break. It's not like anyone gave a SHIT Jessye Norman died. And she was one of the greatest Richard Strauss interpreters. Yet Jessye wasn't even in the NEWS. That how low our culture and level of listening has degraded. All banter aside, Greg, i'm not trying to attack your view, i'm just saying that this type of sining is totally a 180 from what Nina was doing. And, also, you are trying to compare little three and four minutes songs to intricately developed full-length musical compositions. Not the same thing at all. Which is what made me laugh. Nina Simone's live recordings are very important, and thank God we have them. But to try to "argue" that Nina Simon's recordings were of the greatest? What was meant by that is that it is one of the greatest interpretations of Wagner that was recorded. Nobody "interpreted" la Niña. Nina was Nina, and nobody else.
If there be a single peak of human existence, this is it.
Do you mean that time in history? Or do you mean effect of the music on experience?🦻
@@Gamster420 Essentially the latter, though I am going so far as to say that the music *is* that apex of humanity.
I heard 'Tristan und Isolde' in Berlin (Deutsche Oper) in 1981, and bawled my eyes out like never before at Isolde's 'Liebestot'. Why? People die of love -- shattered, broken-hearted -- every day. We must cease inflicting those 'thousand cuts' upon each other. AMEN.
Berlin, Furtwangler and Flagstad. What a treasure.
Such power and beauty of that voice. Kirsten Flagstad rises to the ethereal, the noblest ideal of love.
Thank you Germany , thank you Europe , thank you Richard Wagner.
the wonderful thing about Wagner's music is that it is ALL his.
He was not accepted at musical academies for instruction,
he couldn't find a piano teacher that would instruct him,
so he taught himself piano and learned to compose on his own.
His music comes from inside his soul. He performed his own research,
wrote his own libretti, devised his own plots, designed his own opera
house to play his music dramas inside.
He believed that the world owed him a living for the beautiful creations he wove into existence and he was probably correct. Fortunately, he lived during a time when just such a person lived who would provide the money needed. Thank heaven for King Ludwig
What a beautiful, poetic comment George Park! You summed up all the things I find remarkable about Wagner. Indeed thank heavens for King Ludwig... and Wagner.
Excellent comment. Wagner(my gt,gt,Uncle) was fortunate I think that he did not get a piano teacher. It was a divine way to keep him from being being polluted by the limited, visionless nards of his day in music. Virgil Fox's rendition of it upon the Wanamaker Organ captures the harmonic and spiritual values like no other instrument on earth and in his hands lightens the soul.
Thanks, one of best comments I’ve ever read.
But, pls don’t tell me u enjoy Schoenberg too?
What is amazing is how a person as despicable as Wagner could compose such beautiful music.
@@Shahrdad My Friend, what ever did Wagner do to you? He not only was a musical and organisational genius, but he was a social justice, democratic revolutionary. He almost lost his head as well as the good post he had as Kappel Meister in Dresden due to his socialist leanings. He was anti-monarchist, anti-capitalist and he was for the common man and women! I can't see anything wrong with that, so why do you?
Maybe it cld be your lack of education that is the problem?
I send you ,my best regards,
Robert Fraser.
Australia.
Have you ever noticed that in the 1950’s and 60’s that all operas were played much slower than they are today? It’s so refreshing to sit and hear them played the way they were written.
what about Bernstein?
oh yeah bro i totally noticed that
NOT
Really ? Try Toscanini some time
True. Nowadays, musicians seem to hurry through each piece of music.
The cadence in the final measures, when the tristan chord is reprised one last time, heavily disturbing the 'hopeful' key the final singing pitch settled in and then after all resolving into the final b major while you are still awestruck by the sound of Kirstens voice is almost unbearable, gets me every time - there is so much in there. You can feel all the joy and sadness at once. This is the absolute pinnacle of music for me. Genius.
EDIT: Imagine Wagner would have ended the whole thing on the tristan chord without resolving into b major. This would have driven people into insanity.
The need for that b-major was set with literally the first sound, and the characters, singers and audience have been anticipating, waiting and yearning, for the entire five hours for that single ultimate moment of musical, sexual and spiritual resolution and apotheosis.
Wagner was a terrible bastard but damned if this wasn't astonishing genius.
I can never forget the picture of recording with Flagstad painted by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau....he said the orchestra would play, and Flagstad would be knitting away until she heard her cue. She would put her knitting aside, stand up, and let loose with the most incredible high notes, beautifully sung, and then she’d sit down, pick up her knitting, and keep going until her next entrance! “Knitting for grandchildren!” F-D explained, his eyes dancing!
Knitting is meditation.
Rarement on rencontre une symbiose totale entre la voix et l'orchestre . Furtwangler et Flagstad nous offre un moment sublime , inégalé dans l'histoire du chant . Ce moment béni transcende nos pauvres existences , et l'epoque médiocre et anxiogène que nous vivons . L'art demeure cette fenêtre ouverte vers l'infini...
Sans doute le plus grand moment dans toute l'histoire de la musique.
Merci, Marc-Aurele ...............................
Well said, Marc.
Mon coeur vibre avec le votre, cher Wagnérien........
Un sommet ! interprété par Jessy Norman c'est également à tomber à la renverse.
As an enraptured girl of 12yrs old, I met the towering woman that was Kirsten Flagstad and was rendered speechless by the bravura performance at Manchester's Free Trade Hall. At the Stage door, she presented me with a yellow rose (rare in 1952 Manchester) from her bouquet. But Michael, you are right, as a regular attendee of Glyndebourne, no one has come up to the stunning voice of Flagstad for me though many reach perfection. But she was peerless, stunning and I suppose that as a first experience for an impressionable little girl that would always be so.
What a lovely story! Thank you for sharing this wonderful memory with us.
Thank you for sharing, and you are more privileged than you can imagine. My first experience of opera was in Stockholm with Elisabeth Söderström as the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro. In spite of the many wonderful performances that I have heard and that I remember, you have had a greater experience than many of us.
Amazing memory! Yes, what a voice. Almost the only one I know, but sometimes one strikes lucky with what Fate sends...
Mary Fallon
I wish that I could have been with you that day! I was born in 1952 and wish that I was older so I could have seen the greatest dramatic soprano live in concert or opera! I was very good friends with her son-in-law the last seven years of his life, and that was a great honor and pleasure...
I envy you
Even I can tell Ms. Flagstad was exceptional. This is a "wow"!
Richard Wagner has put into music the act of love.............nothing can ever compare with it. He is a musical genius.
very beautiful
Of course he did.... He is a genius
the climax is somewhat lukewarm and not convincing imho
Not a good act of love.
Wagner speaks to my innermost being...
Yes. But love as a curse that could only be resolved through death.
If coronavirus destroys humanity I would play this as the finnal soundtrack of whole world.
It is a fairly apt soundtrack to the End.
Just like in "Melancholia"
Pentapus Your wish is granted, the end of the human race is already in progress so I‘m listening now😉
Ce prélude, je pourrais l'écouter en boucle.
95% of the virus spread would have been prevented if communism didn't exist in China. How many more lives have to be lost to communism?
i just had goosebumps for 20 minutes, you know its real when they stay 2 minutes after the piece ends.
One thing that you can immediately sense is the humanity of Furtwanglers conducting and the sheer beauty of Kirsten Flagstads voice.
The first time I heard Liebestod I was in a van with friends heading off for a day of shopping; riding 'shotgun' I got to choose the radio station and picked a local classical station, which was airing the opera. It was late in Act III when I tuned in. We were talking and I confess I wasn't paying much attention to the music until - Liebestod. I began to weep, sobbing, unable to speak - you know, I am sure. I have more control these days, but this performance takes me right back to that van with tears rolling down my face. Brava! And thank you for sharing it.
It is hypnotic. I spent a lot of time listening to it over and over when I was an early teen. Wagner. How lucky we were for him to have existed. Nobody else could have done it.
And we're still blown away by this cat who lived before our great grandparents. I don't believe in heaven, but Wagner certainly must have!
Stunning, haven't heard for probably 20 years. The tears flow and the goose bumps make me shiver. Thx so much....
True...Do you know this? Lohengrin : czcams.com/video/lqk4bcnBqls/video.html
Or Parzival ? czcams.com/video/8k41D9por6c/video.html
@@kyrieeleison35 I agree fully.
The best version ever. Perfect symbiosis between voice and orchestra.
This piece connects me to so many things - my breath, my grief, my passions, my longing....the melody flows through my soul and takes me on this journey that is so fulfilling. And I feel every part of me is considered and transformed. Music is so magical.
Nothing, I mean nothing moves me as much as this! Wagner makes you feel emotions you haven't had since childhood, then has you experience new emotions you never knew you had.
When I listen this piece of music, I understand what a real love ist.
I have been hearing this opera since I was seventeen years old and it s now 46 years and I have not come across any performance like Furtwangler's in these 63 years of mine. This will always be my # 1 performance.
I agree 100%!!!
Perhaps you were enthralled by Ms. Flagstad's participation?
@@oleflogger6828 That is secondary for me; vocals do not take priority. It is always the orchestral statement that matters to me.
I agree with you Mark. This piece always brings me to tears. It was cultivated within a divine shell like a perfect pearl, a celestial inspiration. It has such unexpected harmonics and the music opens around her voice like a choir of sympathetic angels. It just goes on melting the heart until the spirit ascends into the top of the head vibrating. More beautiful than the rising sun, more luminous than a divine light encased in crystal, set forever in a niche of lights. As tragic as blighted love pouring down a cliff in a rushing waterfall.
CB You are a poet.
IMHO Liebestod is the single greatest piece of music ever written.
@@elizabethwallace7108 There are so many "single great pieces of music" to choose from. The Ciaconna from Bach's second partita. The marcia funebre from Beethoven's Eroica (Furtwängler and the Wiener Philharmoniker, December 1944). The Ricercare a 6 by Bach in the orchestration of Anton Webern. Verklarte Nacht by Schoenberg. And so many things outside the German and Central European tradition.
Thank you for this beautiful commentary.
This defines what it is to be human.
Indeed...
I often think of beauty like this as redeeming us as humans.
You are my kinda people!
That note at 16:50...The most sublime sound I have ever heard! Just heavenly!
I first heard this melody, when i was seven years old, and i knew then it was not from this world.
Julio Larraz
CZcams -- A platform creating the greatest avenue ever developed by human beings for providing absolute joy to other human beings who could never have experienced that joy without it. It feels like a library for my soul.
The composer, and the musicians create that library for you. If you are really so grateful for it go buy records!
trolls. . even here . . just listen to the music. .
What a precious expression you mention!
I absolutely agree with your opinion.
@@derya7603 But, Derya, i would never had learned about so many of these composers WITHOUT these CZcams posts. Not to mention everything i learn from the thoghtfull comments of seasoned listeners!
@@MontoyaMatrix Exactly. I only learned of this through reading the comments in a Maria Callas performance. CZcams is loaded with the worst examples of humanity, but at no other time in human existence have we had such a trove of treasures in the palm of our hand. This is magnificent.
Flagstad's voice is like a glass of finest malt on a cold winter night, rich and colorful and passionate and smooth. Incredible.
+Andrew 80 PERFECT AND MAGICAL COMMENT...WILL REMBER THIS...
+Andrew 80 your comparison is right! what a singer, what a sweet and passionate heart, and I love the Jessye Norman version too, makes me cry of commotion !
Such a beautiful comparison. The sheer beauty of Flagstad's voice never fails to send a shiver down my spine everytime I hear her.
I love a good malted milk!
It is clear in my mind that this is the most beautiful music or sound ever recorded, nothing can ever surpass this in beauty of sound. It is an everlasting sound and thus; ever-giving. It has infinite moods and yet just one. It shows fear, sadness, despair, hope, boldness and eternal euphoria, yet it is merely the sound of love. Tristan and Iseult might not be my favorite love story, but Wagner has put scribbles on paper to the sound that all lovers have, do, and will know if they love, and hearing this means you have a heart, and tearing up means you have felt true love. It is the sound of infinite, selfless, giving, caring, passionate, eternal, unsurpassed love and nothing more; what else could you want...
You are so right, Divine love is encapsulated in Wagner's eternal music. Yes, it brings tears but how lucky we are to have known such sublime love.
What a wonderful vocal range Kirsten Flagstad had. Liebestod is rapture for the ears. How wonderful to hear it again. A great piece
of music and a great voice. Thank you.
Greatest composer.Greatest recording.Greatest orchestra.Greatest singer.And greatest conductor of the world.
The iconic Flagstad and Furtwanger 1952 EMI recording ----- STILL the greatest recording of this opera in existence. One of the greatest recordings in the history of the music. Furtwangler was THE Wagner conductor and Flagstad, at age 57 (she was born in 1895!), continued to maintain her golden and shining instrument to make this never-to-be beaten complete recording. It's always a pleasure to hear this magical recording, around which all subsequent recordings must revolve around. A miracle all around.
Yes, Larry, it´s THE Performance. THE Gold Standard against which all others must be compared!!
I'm not knocking Kirsten Flagstad or Wilhelm Furtwangler, and this recording does justice to their legendary performances, though the primitive state of recording compared to latter days is becoming increasingly obvious through the years. I have listened to this recording many times, considering it the pinnacle it is, and treasure the original LP version of the whole work among my collection. However, I only recently came across Waltraud Meier singing this piece. I can't believe decades have gone by and I hadn't seen her before! She has had sensational write-ups across the continents, both as a "once in a lifetime" singer and for her stunning performances on stage, when she seems able to act incredibly AND sing like an angel! I'm now busy trying to acquire everything she's committed to disc and DVD - and there's plenty of it! Look her up! I'm sure you won't regret it!
@silverbud I agree
No doubt. It is STILL THE GREATEST RECORDING of this opera in existence. Indeed!
And her voice had already shown changes, and she was also suffering from arthritis, but rose to this occasion and it's wonderful. Simply amazing.
like lying down in a mossy area in a dark forest clearing ready to surrender to the Ultimate. and beautiful.
#Chris:
What a great way to describe this. I kind of feel the same way about the conclusion of Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs. So beautiful that it makes you feel ready to go into the afterlife. "Surrender to the Ultimate" is an incredible way to express it. You hit the nail on the head with your observation. Congratulations!
Larry Mitchell I am a feeling being :-)
#Chris:
Of that I have no doubt.
An absolutely astounding voice! One has to sit alone and be still after hearing this. Thank you for sharing.
Mildly and gently,
how he smiles,
how the eye
he opens sweetly ---
Do you see it, friends?
Don’t you see it?
Brighter and brighter
how he shines,
illuminated by stars
rises high?
Don’t you see it?
How his heart
boldly swells,
fully and nobly
wells in his breast?
How from his lips
delightfully, mildly,
sweet breath
softly wafts ---
Friends! Look!
Don’t you feel and see it?
Do I alone hear this melody,
which wonderfully and softly,
lamenting delight,
telling it all,
mildly reconciling
sounds out of him,
invades me,
swings upwards,
sweetly resonating
rings around me?
Sounding more clearly,
wafting around me ---
Are these waves
of soft airs?
Are these billows
of delightful fragrances?
How they swell,
how they sough around me,
shall I breathe,
Shall I listen?
Shall I drink,
immerse?
Sweetly in fragrances
melt away?
In the billowing torrent,
in the resonating sound,
in the wafting Universe of the World-Breath ---
drown,
be engulfed ---
unconscious ---
supreme delight!
thank you for the english translated words
Me da mucha pena que en mi pais Mexico, no haya una sola persona que opine de esta obra cumbre de la musica. Wagner fue el rival mas famoso de Verdi, sin embargo compuso este bellisimo poema musical exaltando el romance entre tristan e isolda, personajes miticos, y de alguna manera se adelanto al ruso tchaikovski quien le dio vida al poema musical Romeo y Julieta que es bellisimo tambien, a mis 75 años los he escuchado no menos de cien veces y nunca me cansare de volverlos a oir, felicidades y gratitud para quien nos gratifica con estas obras geniales.
The most beautiful music I have ever heard. Nothng compares.
+vicky smelcer
Thank god, that he gave you this gift. How many people are not able to sense "absolute beauty".
They hear this, or Gould playing Bach - and it does nothing to them.
I feel sorry for these people, I really do.
vicky smelcer La
True - I lick my wounds after a terrible argument online about Gould - with a pro too! - and now this Wagner (which I permit myself about once every two decades!) is solace indeed!
@johann supper me too it will come eventually...
A divine gift indeed ………...
Thank you so much for posting this. Wagner pulls back the veil and gives us a glimpse of the eternal loveliness at the core of things. This music will never die, it cannot. It will live forever, and it tells us that we do too.
@Greg Jacques Lucifer's Jizz Gargler You say that like it's a bad-----oh wait, it is. Never mind.
FreeMySoles Th3 hell it does. Nearly everyone dies in this opera, no?
The use of leitmotifs related to each protagonis but to also the emotion alterning between the past present and futur. Love in musical form, ETERNAL ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
When I was 15, I got this from the local library and listened to the whole thing in one go. It blew me away.
And well it should have: this recording is voted as the 100 greatest recordings of all time! You have a very understanding soul!
Quite simply sublime.
This is amazing to hear. Furtwangler keeps a smooth tempo flow in the prelude, so it makes more sense that most current performances.
Get the Kleenex ready. Just as Baudelaire wrote to him in a famous piece of fan mail with no return address; Baudelaire's postscript: "I do not set down my address because you might think I wanted something from you." And because Wagner had already given him everything:
"Quite often I experienced a sensation of a rather bizarre nature, which was the pride and the joy of understanding, of letting myself be penetrated and invaded - a really sensual delight that resembles that of rising in the air or tossing upon the sea. And the music at the same time would now and then resound with the pride of life. Generally these profound harmonies seemed to me like those stimulants that quicken the pulse of the imagination… There is everywhere something rapt and enthralling, something aspiring to mount higher, something excessive and superlative." February 17, 1860
Are you kidding me? Maybe the greatest recording in history. The hell with the 20th century.
Well now, did we have any recordings before the 20th century? Hmmmmm?
Thank you!
anbd2016 I think you meant the 21st century. This was recorded in the 20th century...
Guys, he/she is saying that the claim that it is best best of the 20th century is meaningless as it is the greatest of any century.
@@oleflogger6828 Plenty, but most of them just over 2 minutes long and barely audible.
WAGNER so beautiful your music it take's you into another world.
이 시대의 슬픈 전율을 그대로 담아, 우리의 애달픔으로 다가 오네요. 좋은 연주 감사합니다.^^
A summit for our civilisation …………..
yes...alwais i felt the same.
El eterno e hipnótico Wagner. El si sabia como detener el tiempo y llevarnos a otra dimension. Agradezco haber pasado por la vida sin que esta música pase de largo de mi.
What a performance. You can hear their connection to their tradition and history, to a tradition of musical interpretation and performance. It's something that can't be matched in merely note-perfect performances. Something of the European soul.
Jack Wilton Just be more transparent with what you intend to imply here.
Mil veces llevo oída esta versión, y cada vez es más hermosa!!! Es colosal, es increíble!!!!!!!!
This has to be one of the most evocative and transcendent pieces of art ever produced. There are romantic composers and then there is Wagner: he is immutable and absolute in his mastery of the human condition. This tour-de-force makes it easy to understand why Isolde would gladly jump into that burning funeral pyre--- to hear this music play!
Beautifully said! Hear, hear (literally)!
aye. . . It's not bad fella m'lad. . . .
Brünnhilde jumped into the pyre, not Isolde.
@@jackdomanski6758 wrong, brunhilde is from Siegfried, not from tristan und isolde
lablous
I know...well, more precisely: Brünnhilde jumps in the pyre in Gotterdammerung.
Words are completely unable to describe this magnificent recording! Thank you for downloading this masterpiece!
Furtwängler brings out the longing and the plaintiveness of the love theme so well that i unavoidably begin crying.
Magnificent. I was weaned on this recording. It still stirs my soul!
I've listened to this piece without the singing, and while still a beautiful work, it's Flagstad's golden voice laden with emotion that makes it divine and never fails to move me to tears.
Es imposible oir "esto"a la Flagstad sin llorar. Tengo la grabación desde hace 40 años y siempre, siempre hay lagrimas...y seguirá habiendolas, mientras yo siga con vida.
+Rodolfo MARTIN PARRA
A couple of years ago I attended a perfomance of Tristan und Isolde in Bilbao. At the end of the performance, still day time, you could see guys in their prime crying like little children. Never seen anything like that in my life.
+Jose A Zorrilla Sounds like Portugal is my kind of place. Greetings from Norway.
,
våren
Rodolfo MARTIN PARRA 😪
Yo reservo las lágrimas para la música en vivo, jamás para las grabaciones. Tengo varias grabaciones del Tristán (Fujrtwángler, Bohm, Barenboim, entre otras) y todas son conmovedoras. En vivo he escuchado tres veces esta ópera, la última con Waltraud Meier y Sigfried Jerusalem (con Barenboim) hacia el cambio de siglo. Aparte de Flagstad y Nilsson, otras grandes sopranos wagnerianas de aquellos años fueron Astrid Varnay y Martha Mödl.
Wagner, Furtwangler & Flagstadt was a match made in heaven. I love this recording so much.
incomparable I have just had every emotion torn out of my soul
Alan, I was a teen-ager when I was introduced to this music, which was used in a movie about a selfish violinist and a needy lover who commits suicide, by walking into the ocean, as the violinist is playing a transcription of the music at a concert: I can’t remember the title of the movie, I do remember that Joan Crawford and John Garfield were the lovers! Since then, I have been smitten by this seductive, gorgeous, irresistible-it is too sensual to be divine, but it IS other-worldly!!!
me too
@@davidsolomon8203 Humoresque
knezzoran Thank you for reminding me of the movie title from so many years ago!!!
It does exhaust your heart - amazing music and performance
I wonder how many "Upstairs Downstairs " fans we have. Every tear my Mom and I watched the whole series. It was a ritual. Shes gone now.There is a scen where The mother of the show has gone to the opera with a friend of her son. They have had an affair. On this noght she will come to her senses. And the strains of this beautiful music punctuate every tear that covered my face. It was over. It couldnt be. Her husband knew but never said a word. She knew her place. She was a great lady. I remember my Mama when I hear this and our special evenings in her dementia ridden years. The show was always new to her.
Yes that was a great scene. Poor Lady Marjorie and Charles Hammond - and Richard Bellamy.
In a much later episode, really at the end, James Bellamy is listening to I believe Lohengrin before he leaves Eaton Square to end his life.
@@murrayaronson3753 Lady Marjorie died on the Titanic. That made me so sad.
...a magnificent performance, utterly overwhelming...
Recorded 28 years before I was born. Yet still fresh. Incredible.
A summit for our civilisation ......
What the heck does that suppose to mean? Its an opera about 2 lovers, what does civilization has to do with this.
rober Acevedo My sincere condolences.
@@roberacevedo8232 Idiot.
Wagner is a reminder, nay a clarion call, necessary particularly today--a proclamation--that the white race shall go on forever, unto the stars above us, despite all the satanic forces of envy which wish us dead.
@@nonesuch27 Shut up Nazi
Wow I have never heard her before, I only listen to more recent recordings, but amazing clarity and voice. Tears. Just beautiful.
And she was 57 when she made the recording.
@@peterheisler4648 aunque sea utópico pero compositor de la talla de Ricardo Wagner se merece la eternidad.Es mi humilde y mejor homenaje.Dr.Roberto Óscar Leiva
perfect combination, Flagstad and Furtwangler
Just parts of the music hit you like a cannon, breaks you to pieces. Wagner you blow my mind.
The pinnacle of musical artistry. A wonderful listening experience
Can't believe I'd not heard this recording before; it always churns me up inside emotionally before, but this is beyond words. Just wrecked...
Every now and then I return to this absolute masterpiece. Many thanks
Je crois défaillir à chaque fois que j'écoute ce passage, il est d'une telle intensité dramatique qu'il m'est impossible d'arrêter mes larmes de couler. Cet enregistrement de Furtwängler est réellement exceptionnel et Flagstad est fantastique. Le génie de Wagner servi par de tels interprètes, c'est le summum.
Je vous rejoins complètement
Her high notes are like a explosion. What a strengh. Fantastic Flagstad. And the Orchestra the same. I like to see these classics executions.
IMHO the best Tristan and Isolde recording of the last Century
I feel like she is taking me on a journey to somewhere I have never been. She still remains today a measuring stick for much of Wagner's genius.
Words fail me I am lost in the moment , Stunning !
Amazing! Flagstad above all! Even iwe cannot see her we can imagine her moving acting. And Furtwängler unreachable.
Traubel and Nilsson are equal to Flagstad. And Toscanini and Klemperer are equal to Furtwangler.
The best I have ever heard!
Nothing else better than this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The soul of Wagner's music on the Furtwangler baton!!!
Love it.
And Flagstad, his favorite Isolde!
Mind you, the sublime Flagstad was fifty-seven years old when she did this complete Tristan & Isolde recording in 1952, and was to continue to make recordings for Decca in stereo in the late 1950's when she herself was already in her early sixties. Who can sing like this NOW???????? No one, of course. Only Birgit Nilsson sang on the level of Flagstad. The two of them constitute the best in Wagnerian singing in the Twentieth Century.
Agree with you. This week we have Tristan und Isolde in concert version, with Waltraud Meier, Peter Seiffert, Ekaterina Gubanova and Rene Pape (Isolde, Tristan, Bragane and Marke), directed by argentine Daniel Barenboim with his Divan Orchestra. Also piano with Barenboim and another argentine Martha Argerich, together. Awesome!!!! Colon Theater, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Argentine kissis!!!!
+Larry Mitchell Alas Schwarzkopf provided the high notes for her in this recording.
Flagstad never needed to fear anything in the Liebestod. There is nothing in this gorgeous transfiguration piece that rises above an A, a note which Flagstad could command until the end. The two lightning high Cs when the lovers meet in Act II is a different matter. They're so fast and short that they can be left out altogether. Traubel never sang them either, and neither did a lot of others. It's really no big deal. I can't understand why these two insignificant top Cs have taken on such importance. They mean nothing. They didn't need Schwarzkopf because the notes could have been left out from the outset.
One must not forget Frieda Leider. Leider was the great Brunhilde and Isolde before Flagstad.
One must not forget Freida Leider the great Isolde and Brunhilde before Flagstad.
EPIC. No other words to describe.
Flagstad's pianissimi are the only ones that sound like "a very loud sung note from very far away". Nobody else really got this but her, even Caballe.
Try Waltraud Meier. She knocks socks off the opposition!
Waltraud Meier.
The three Isoldas I've heard sing this live in full performances of this opera are Ingrid Haebler, Montserrat Caballé and Waltraud Meier. The most recent was Meier, in the year 2000 with Siegfried Jerusalem and Barenboim. I don't remember any of them distinctly (I mean the vocal performances).
Yes, there are other excellent recordings, but this is the ONE. Peerless.
Caballe was great, but not as great as Flagstad. Only Nilsson and Traubel were as great as Flagstad. And certainly not someone named Waltraud.
my god, as beautifull it is.....what a stunning orchestral performance...
FURTWANGLER THE GREATEST WAGNERIAN CONDUCTOR
The greatest conductor.
Don't overlook Hans Knappertsbusch. He stands at the same level as Furtwängler. Check out his Parsifal and his Ring from Bayreuth (I have the 1956 cycle, but there are also recordings from 1957 and 58). The other two Rings I have are by Furtwängler and Joseph Keilberth. All three from the 1950s.
Keilberth was equally great. And Knappertsbusch. And Solti's recording of the Ring is fantastic.
So powerful and beautiful... words cannot even begin to describe this music
This recording is absolute magic.
I love, love....LOVE this post! Vielen Dank DjangoMan! It is supreme.
Holy sh.... cow! This performance is transcendental.
I my God I have cried hearing the Liebestod, I don't cry since I heard the 4th movement of the 6th symphony of Tchaikovsky. :) Simply shuddering, one of my favourite pieces of music of all time...
CZcams must be desperate to wreck this genius filled music with ads.
It's really powerful and beautiful. Amazing Flagstad.
Magnificent and breathtaking... I am having trouble breathing at this moment
the greatest voice to ever lived
Are there any recordings of her singing with Caruso? NO, probably not. They were just a generation apart in time. And, Pavarotti came after her. Unfortunate.
Flagstad, Traubel, Nilsson, Melchior, Ponselle, Caruso, Callas, Bjorling, Corelli. They were equally great.
Maravilloso! Furtwängler captura toda mi emoción y Kirsten Flagstad una de las mejores sopranos dramáticas que he escuchado haciendo honor a las óperas wagnerianas!
What an historical record. The music and the performance are a miracle. Indeed. One of the greatest recordings of the century. I also like Szell/Cleveland and Waltraud Meier for Tristan und Isolde.
Wagner's music has a different quality and beauty that penetrates into the depths of the unknown human emotions.
I have this "TRISTAN und ISOLDE" at home, it's INCREDIBLE!!!!!
I agree. One of the greatest recordings of the 20th century.
@Greg Jacques Lucifer's Jizz Gargler Nina Simone! LOL! --- Oh, damn, we forgot that one Nina Simone recording! -- Gimmie a break. It's not like anyone gave a SHIT Jessye Norman died. And she was one of the greatest Richard Strauss interpreters. Yet Jessye wasn't even in the NEWS. That how low our culture and level of listening has degraded. All banter aside, Greg, i'm not trying to attack your view, i'm just saying that this type of sining is totally a 180 from what Nina was doing. And, also, you are trying to compare little three and four minutes songs to intricately developed full-length musical compositions. Not the same thing at all. Which is what made me laugh. Nina Simone's live recordings are very important, and thank God we have them. But to try to "argue" that Nina Simon's recordings were of the greatest? What was meant by that is that it is one of the greatest interpretations of Wagner that was recorded. Nobody "interpreted" la Niña. Nina was Nina, and nobody else.
@Greg Jacques Lucifer's Jizz Gargler Thanks, Niña. Hugggs!
Life is only on earth, and not for long.
Cómo no escuchar a la Flagstad y a Furtwängler sin que se le estremezcan a uno hasta la última fibra de nuestro ser! Insuperable!
Absolutely beautiful.
La voce più commovente del secolo scorso .Grazie Madame Flagstad
Furtwangler the best one
Bonjour ami . Je ne sais d'oú tu est . Néanmoins nous avons le même avis sur le fait que Monsieur Furtwangler est le seigneur 🕀
@@jerylesaffre2331 some times to much fast. but he wos great