Wilhelm Furtwängler, Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper
(Recorded October, 1935, and January, 1936, Vienna State Opera House)
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13th October, 1935
Elisabeth — Anna Báthy
Hermann, Landgraf von Thüringen — Ludwig Hofmann
(00:00) — Act 2, Scene 1: “Dich, teure Halle, grüß’ ich wieder”
(03:39) — Act 2, Scene 4: “Gar viel und schön ward hier in dieser Halle”
15th October, 1935
Wolfram von Eschenbach — Alexander Svéd
(07:52) — Act 1, Scene 4: “Als du in kühnem Sange uns bestrittest”
18th October, 1935
Wolfram von Eschenbach — Alexander Svéd
(10:51) — Act 3, Scene 1: “Wohl wüsst’ ich hier sie im Gebet zu finden”
(13:28) — Act 3, Scene 2: “O du, mein holder Abendstern”
9th January, 1936
Venus — Kerstin Thorborg
Tannhäuser — Max Lorenz
Elisabeth — Maria Müller
(16:29) — Act 1, Scene 2: “Dir töne Lob! Die Wunder sei’n gepriesen”
(18:52) — Act 2, Scene 1: “Dich, teure Halle, grüß’ ich wieder”
(21:56) — Act 2, Scene 2: “…deinen Füssen mich!”…”So stehet auf!”
(23:27) — Act 2, Scene 4: “Seht mich, die Jungfrau, deren Blute”
(26:05) — Act 2, Scene 4: “Zum Heil den Sündigen zu führen”
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Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner with a German libretto by the composer. It is based on two German legends: Tannhäuser, the mythologized medieval German Minnesänger and poet, and the tale of the Wartburg Song Contest. It received its premiere in Dresden on 19th October, 1845. Wagner made a number of revisions to the opera throughout his life, and was still unsatisfied with it when he died.
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About the 1933-1944 Hermann May recordings:
“In early 1933 the sound engineer of the Vienna State Opera (Hermann May) procured a primitive recording device and obtained the permission of State Opera director Clemens Krauss to make recordings. The device, however, was not conceived for recording lengthy musical works, but for controlling the artists involved in the production. The sound-recording medium used were sheets made of various materials such as wax, gelatine, decelith or similar substances.
These sheets could record only between three and five minutes of music, which generally made it impossible to record larger segments in their entirety. When listening to the musical excerpts featured here, however, we can clearly see that Hermann May oriented himself on the score to find logical starting and stopping points for his recordings. There are thus hardly any cases in which a recording is interrupted in the middle of a musical phrase. There are a great deal of recordings in which longer scenes are preserved on several successive sheets; the changing of the side or sheet always entails a brief interruption. But even in these cases, Hermann May based himself on the beginning or ending of a musical phrase, thus taking into account the fact that the technical quality of the recording diminished somewhat towards the end of the sheet.”