Conductor Leopold Stokowski and the music of Richard Wagner was a match surely made in musical heaven, especially in light of Stokowski’s frequent programming of concert hall symphonic synthesis arrangements of Wagner’s operas. In an earlier post of Stokowski conducting orchestral excerpts from Wagner’s four part The Ring of the Nibelung for Decca Phase 4, I wondered what a Stokowski recording of the complete Ring Cycle would have been like. The conductor shopped the project to at least three major classical labels but was turned down. Perhaps as a consolation or compromise RCA Red Seal recorded Stokowski with the NBC Symphony Orchestra and young opera singers (which included future opera divas Shirley Verrett and Martina Arroyo among others) in a single Living Stereo LP of vocal excerpts from Wagner’s Ring in 1961. A year later, during one of his triumphant return concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Stokowski conducted Brunhilde’s Immolation and Finale from Gotterdammerung with the premier Wagnerian soprano of the time, Birgit Nilsson. In 1973, 4 years before Stokowski’s death, he recorded two Wagner orchestral discs for RCA including his final recordings of music from The Ring operas. This downloads brings together the 1961 Ring vocal excerpts, the Birgit Nilsson Immolation Scene and the 1973 Ring orchestral recordings, compiled to give us an idea of what a Stokowski complete Ring Cycle might have sounded like if he had been given the green light on such a recording. I personally feel that we may have missed out on one of the greatest recordings ever of Wagner’s Ring with that special Stokowski sound but please listen to this compilation and decide for yourself. The download includes a bonus track outtake from the 1973 Wagner recordings of Stokowski conducting the Rienzi Overture with an alternate ending rather than the one traditionally used for concert performance (the traditional one was subsequently recorded by Stokowski and used on the 1973 RCA LP release instead).

Stokowski conducts vocal & orchestral excerpts from Richard Wagner's THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG (recorded in 1961, 1962 & 1973 for RCA)
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Thank you steviefromalaska for another great post.

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Thanks for the share and the info Steve!

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Thank you so much, Stevie!

PLease reupload this gem!Thank you very much!!!

PLease reupload this gem!Thank you very much!!!

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Thanks for sharing!

Thank you