LORDS 01F THE RlN-,-G Mike Ashman compares Furtwangler's and Barenboim's Wagnerian outlooks

The artistic relationship between Wilhelm Furtwãngler and Daniel Barenboim -who has always championed the German conductor's music-making and music - is a complex one. Elements of Furtwangler's interpretations have left a clear mark on Barenboim's - the big, Romantic Mozart style, the quasi-Wagnerian drama brought out in Schumann symphonies - but this has never been a simple case of master and pupil. A significant part of Barenboim's questing, impulsive interpretative style was forged during his term with the Orchestre de Paris and much of the individuality of this 1991-92 Ring stems from what might be called its 'Frenchness' - the sudden shifts of mood and tempo, the bright colours of and sheer joy in the panoply of Wagner's increasing mastery of the orchestra. Also, at moments like the Fire Music at the end of Die Walküre and Gotterdammerung's Rhine Journey, Barenboim has a way of standing back and examining details in the manner of a Boulez or Celibidache. From listening to Furtwdngler may well come the total incorporation of the leitmotifs within a plasticity of approach to the flow of the music, and a treating of each act like a symphonic poem in which every rest and demi-semiquaver carries dramatic meaning.

And how different those dramatic meanings are to each man! For Furtw)ingler, who once reprimanded a stage director for attempting irony in Mozart's Figaro, the Ring is a noble, epic, mythical world - the Rhinemaidens are innocence personified, the giants simple, confused beings, Siegfried a straightforward manly hero and Briinnhilde a radiant soul of selfless love. To aid him in this vision, he regularly cast singers who would perform the roles 'straight' -a Ferdinand Frantz who would throw back his head and sing rather than a Hans Hotter with his Shakespearian colouring of text and voice, a Loge and Mime likewise who would eschew most vocal acting (try Windgassen's 'Dutch Raub' or Patzak's attempt to poison Siegfried). The conductor himself would provide the 'interpretation' from the pit, which meant, of course, that Wagner would -because no detail of scoring, however slight, escapes Furtw)ingler's baton when it illuminates the drama. Already in the early days of Rheingold we clearly catch Flosshilde's warning to her sisters about an intruder, or the important dynamic fact that Wotan is half dreaming during his first recitative. Amazingly, too, all this is achieved through the written score itself, supreme balancing and intense tempo manipulation because, unlike Clemens Krauss or Rudolf Kempe, Furtw)ingler is (deliberately) no colourist.

With Barenboim, on the other hand, comes an identification with a stage production (by Harry Kupfer; the D\TD release is trailed here on a bonus disc) to a degree rarely heard even in previous 'live' recordings of the cycle. Many talk of how the Entry of the Gods into Valhalla is an empty show of pomp, or of the ambivalence of Wotan's punishment and farewell to Briinnhilde at the close of Walkure; Barenboim actually makes these moments sound like that with his orchestra. His singing actors (with a decidedly British bias in the casting) are all great word-painters and encouraged to be so. Listen to the range of conflicting emotions portrayed by Tomlinson in the Wanderer's final meeting with Erda, a scene normally heard as noble resignation with a touch of frustration, which is exactly how Frantz delivers it in Rome in 1953 (although much goes on around him, not least the extraordinary amount of text which Furtw)ingler and his old sparring partner Margarete Klose manage to make crystal clear). It is this championing of a strong interpretative dramatic line that makes the Barenboim set unique among modern Ring releases, rendering much of the competition bland and abstract by comparison. He is also good at the individual tinta of each of the four operas: the first two acts of Siegfried are especially mercurial and quick-witted, sometimes, as in Mime's asides in the forging scene, pressing the virtuosity of his well-honed ensemble (the stage production was by this time in its fifth year) to thrilling limits.

The merits of the individual singers have been well rehearsed by Alan Blyth in these pages on the sets' respective first appearances. Both conductors have worked up true ensembles from carefully chosen candidates and there are treats in store - not least the use of two bass

Wotans (surely, as Wagner later admitted, the true colour of voice for the role), two most feminine (as opposed to warhorse) Briinnhildes - Anne Evans especially lyrical, agile and Frida Leider-like - and the presence of some big names in the smaller female roles for Furtw)ingler (Sena Jurinac has three parts in Gotterdamme'rung). Both recordings have the merit of being essentially 'live' but made under the less strenuous conditions of an act at a time. (Time off in Rome was not wasted - the day before Siegfried Act 3, Furtwangler performed Brahms's First Violin Sonata with Gioconda da Vito for the Pope!) It has sometimes been said that the playing of the RAT Rome orchestra is poor in comparison with the 'other' Furtw)ingler Italian Ring (La Scala, 1950, with Kirsten Flagstad's Briinnhilde), let alone with the London and Vienna Philharmonics in excerpts from the cycle preserved from the 1930s and '40s. Occasionally it reveals inexperience of this music in full performance but it is always alive and on fire, inspired by a chief who (in an interview in most fluent Italian presented here on the very last track of the CDs) clearly appreciated his players' contribution.

In recent years Gebhardt has assembled a treasure trove of Wagner performances from the 1940s and '50s; their 'takeover' of this cycle from EMI (on one less CD and considerably cheaper) is transferred (a fraction sharper than EMI's?) at a higher volume, and exchanges detail for warmth. It remains adequate radiophonic mono, Documentation is restricted to cast and track details; the discs are in plain white sleeves. .Varner Classics has simply placed the original Teldec four-set issue in a box, keeping the original booklets intact and placing the discs plus track-listing in separate sleeves. The sound is rich, warm, true and very interventionist: it does not sound at all like the sunken Bayreuth pit heard in, say, Philips's 1962 Parsifal or the forthcoming 1955 Testament/Decca stereo Ring. What used to be called the side-turns are annoyingly disruptive: CDs 2 and 3 of Siegfried end by interrupting climaxes in mid-scene. Nonetheless, the Barenboim remains the modern Ring of choice on disc; the Furtwangler is an indispensable historical purchase. )