Ring Recordings Libretto Question

I was recently looking at a copy of the Barenboim Ring that we have at the station and I noticed that the libretto books have the various leitmotifs written in musical notation along side the text where they occur. This is a clever touch. Do any other sets do this? At home I have only the Solti which does not. Also, how do the notes and essays of the various available cycles compare?

Thanks in advance.

Dana Hill Gainesville, Florida

The Potted Ring has a couple of Leitmotifs (90, I think) in the liner notes to the first CD. But that's a different thing. There aren't any texts.

What you describe is done in the Furtwaengler Walkuere (Moedl, Frantz, Suthaus), but not very often IIRC. I haven't seen this in complete sets (Karajan, Janowski, Goodall, Furtwaengler/EMI and Gebhardt), possibly because they want to include the text in four languages (or make the liner notes as small as possible).

As I recall, the Barenboim Ring (on Teldec) has the German text with translations into French and English. Come to think of it, I can think of a lot of German opera recordings I have without Italian translations, but almost no Italian operas without German translations.

Dana Hill Gainesville, Florida

I'm not a big fan of any of the essays of which I'm aware. As for libretto books, the Solti set (in the CDs, not the old ones in the LP sets) excludes nearly all of the stage directions and gives you dialogue only. A major drawback to anyone not familiar with the operas.

The best libretto books of all time were included in the Furtwängler RAI Seraphim LP sets, featuring full German libretti - stage directions and all, with paralell translations by William Mann. They were also a nice convenient size - roughly as tall as the LP boxes but just over half as wide.

In a fit of shelf saving several years ago, I sold my LP set since I had other libretto copies and the EMI CD Furtwängler RAI reissue (sans libretti). The LP set turns up from time to time dirt cheap in used LP stores. Next time I find it, I'll probably buy it just to get those books again.

Sounds as though they are based on the 'Friends of Covent Garden' libretto set published in the mid-60s, set of four packerbacks about 1cm thick (each) and with a fold out sheet containing the leitmotifs in each. The leitmotifs were numbered and the relevant numbers were printed at the appropriate points in the libretti. The translations were by William Mann. They were one of my better purchases and I always use them in preference to the books that came with the recordings I have.

I'll have to keep my eyes open for these. With the motive references, they sound even better than the Seraphim LP books. I assume they've been OOP for years now.

IIRC, at some point after their initial release of the Solti Ring, Decca also put together an audio essay on a few LP's (I forget who did it) that provided actual musical samples of each leitmotiv from the Solti recordings (or they might have actually been specially recorded for the analysis). I think it appeared on CD a while back but I just did a quick search and couldn't find it.

>> I was recently looking at a copy of the Barenboim Ring that we have at >> the station and I noticed that the libretto books have the various >> leitmotifs written in musical notation along side the text where they >> occur. This is a clever touch. Do any other sets do this? At home I >> have only the Solti which does not. > > > IIRC, at some point after their initial release of the Solti Ring, Decca > also put together an audio essay on a few LP's (I forget who did it) that > provided actual musical samples of each leitmotiv from the Solti recordings > (or they might have actually been specially recorded for the analysis). I > think it appeared on CD a while back but I just did a quick search and > couldn't find it. > > JV > It's 'An Introduction To Der Ring Des Nibelungen'. Deryck Cooke did the lecture.

Best,

I believe it's still available (I picked up my copy used, but I think it was just re-released). The title of the CD is An Introduction to Der Ring Des Nibelungen (London D 208789), and the analysis is by none other than Deryck Cooke. It's very useful, and I'd recommend anyone who is slightly interested to go ahead and pick it up.

You get the same sort of numbering system in the four ENO paperbacks which you can still sometimes find odd copies of in bookshops.

Sadly I'm sure are long OOP. I used Google to search for them on behalf of a colleague about six months ago and could find nothing that suggested they are still in print.