Description:
Vladimir Ashkenazy - Ein Sommernachtstraum (1994) [FLAC]
Label: Decca
Composer: Felix Mendelssohn
Performer: Dalia Schaechter, Lynne Dawson, Alfred Sramek, Horst Laubenthal, Margarita Lilowa,
Tom Krause
Conductor: Vladimir Ashkenazy, Christoph von Dohnányi
Orchestra/Ensemble: Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Berlin Radio Women's Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
MENDELSSOHN A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Overture; Incidental Music.1 Die erste Walpurgisnacht2 • Vladimir Ashkenazy, cond;1 Christoph Dohnányi, cond;2 Lynne Dawson (sop);1 Dalia Schaechter (mez);1 Margarita Lilowa (mez);2 Horst Laubenthal (ten);2 Tom Krause (bar);2 Alfred Sramek (bs);2 Berlin R Women’s Ch;1 German SO Berlin;1 Vienna P & Singverein2 • DECCA ELOQUENCE 480 1279 (78:39)
Here is another release from the Decca Eloquence label, Universal’s Australian subsidiary. But unlike another Decca Eloquence CD featuring the Eastman Wind Ensemble, reviewed elsewhere, which I urged readers to consider acquiring in its still available original Mercury release, the disc at hand presents a rather different set of circumstances.
Ashkenazy’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, featuring Lynne Dawson and Dalia Schaechter, is outstanding, one of the best—effervescent and scintillating throughout; but when first released in 1994 on the original Decca label, it was one of those CDs that the company decided, for whatever reason, not to distribute in the U.S. It is still available, but in its original coupling with the composer’s Octet, from amazon.com in the U.K., and it will set you back big bucks.
Dohnányi’s Walpurgisnacht, on the other hand, is domestically available in its original London/Decca release, now packaged as a twofer along with Mendelssohn’s First and Second Symphonies. To complicate matters further, Dohnányi recorded the piece a second time for Telarc with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, and with Tom Krause once again the baritone of choice. And that recording, too, is still widely available.
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