German conductor and pianist Wolfgang Sawallisch was one of the most important musical figures of the late 20th century.e century. Box sets have been released to honor his memory. Decca has published 43 CDs of his complete recordings released by Philips and Deutsche Grammophon.
Seeing two big Sawallisch box sets come out one after the other, this one from Universal and the other, which we are waiting for, from Warner, we say to ourselves that there must be an anniversary in the air.
A very curious thing in this circumstance, while the phonographic edition has taken the habit of celebrating anniversaries in advance, we realize that Sawallisch would have been 100 years old in August 2023 and that he died in February 2013. In short, seeing such boxes arriving in the middle of 2024, it’s a bit as if the phonographic edition was admitting to having forgotten the conductor last year!
A lyrical leader
Wolfgang Sawallisch is known and recognized for having been the emblematic musical director of the Bavarian State Opera from 1971 to 1992. He was thus an “authority” on German opera and repertoire (Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner). Bavaria is also home to the Bayreuth Festival, of which he was a regular. The Ghost Ship, Tannhäuser And Lohengrin, captured at the 1961 and 1962 festivals, were the recordings of these works that cemented the Philips catalogue. They appear in this box set.
This idea of ”safe bet” was also established in the symphonic repertoire from the beginning of his career. Conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra from 1960 to 1970, Sawallisch was invited to conduct the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam and, above all, the Staatskapelle of Dresden, with which he recorded his most famous opus: the complete Symphonies by Schumann for EMI (which will be included in the Warner box set).
This sets the milestones and limits of what is found in this Decca box set, apart from operas, a scope which is reduced to the three Wagners, a CD of excerpts from Lortzing, Nicolai and Mascagni and the famous Bluebeard’s Castle (DG) by Bartók with Fischer-Dieskau and Varady.
Limitations
The bulk of the repertoire is symphonic and includes documents that have contributed to the “Philips Duo” catalogue (complete Mendelssohn, Schubert). Three main points can be drawn from it.
The first is that Sawallisch in the 1960s and 1970s was not necessarily the solid, but somewhat boring, bigwig that one imagines. Several of his interpretations (1eD by Mendelssohn, Pastoral in Amsterdam, the spirit of his Strauss waltzes, even some movements of Haydn) have a certain sap and energy.
The second is easily perceived when listening to the Symphonies and the Masses by Schubert recorded in Dresden or theElias by Mendelssohn recorded in Leipzig: by comparison, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra of the 1960s and 1970s is an honourable but grey phalanx, without any particular sonic relief. Compare the 9e Symphony Schubert’s February 1961 performance in Vienna (Sawallisch would fortunately reprise it in Dresden in 1966) with Krips’ Decca version in London in 1959 is quite cruel.
This comparison brings us to the third point: recordings from the 1960s and 1970s sound very “1960s.” Like EMI, Philips was a technical leap behind in the fidelity and subtlety of the recording. Even the Symphonies Mendelssohn’s performances with the Philharmonia in London are narrow.
All this put together, the virtues in terms of archives, which now allow a complete knowledge of the art of this conductor at its beginnings, totally obscure the idea that there could be major revelations here.
The Warner box will notably document the end of Sawallisch’s career, when he was musical director of the Philadelphia Orchestra (1993-2003) and was also entrusted with complete Beethoven and Brahms in Europe.
Since we saved the best for last, Sawallisch, a great opera conductor, was also an accompanist pianist. Five CDs and albums constitute a form of nectar here: two discs of Lieder Strauss with Fischer-Dieskau, the Love Songs – Waltz Brahms reference documents (DG), Dichterlove by Schumann with Peter Schreier and two recordings by baritone Hermann Prey, Winter trip by Schubert and an anthology of the most beautiful Lieder by Richard Strauss.