Thursday 21 June 2007

Listened with great admiration to the Todesverkündigung from Act II of Die Walküre. What music! It is truly remarkable how, as the text and the mood swing through friendliness, anxiety, anger, sorrow, affection -- so the music mirrors the action. I have now been listening to this 1957 recording for fifty years (Solti, Flagstad, Svanholm, VPO). And it is still as moving and as seminal as ever. It was a lucky day when I bought the original mono LPs (which included Act III of Die Walküre).