Sawallisch? Tristan? Nilsson? Underrated?
Wolfgang Sawallisch was so often thought of as a 'kapellmeister' in the lowest sense. He was so much more than that, and deserves the pantheon so much more than many conductors thought unassailably in it. This is one of my favorite Tristans, done by Sawallisch when he was a mere 34 and had nearly fifty years of career ahead of him. It is very hard to make Tristan work in a classical framework - but as so often, Sawallisch finds the connective formal tissue to make it work - albeit with a number of missing measures that are extremely jarring. Every detail registers with the formal coherence a Beethoven symphony, every detail rings out as though Klemperer or Horenstein were on the podium.
Nilsson was still near her beginning, and was a different singer than she'd be just a few years later - plenty electricity of course, but more nuance, less pinning the audience to the back of their chairs.
Tristan is a work I seriously struggle with. Not here. This is one of the few performances that convinces me of how beautiful a work this is. It most certainly looks backward rather than forwards, and brings out a mildness and warmth that puts Tristan directly in contact with the longer Austro-German tradition. No juggular drama a la Bohm, no philosophy a la Furtwangler, no micromanaging the details a la Kleiber. It simply drags you in by sheer proportions and undertow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14ZiHl1CKeM
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