The Last Missing Piece of the Kna’ Grail: Knappertsbusch’s 1955 Parsifal from Bayreuth

Richard Wagner Parsifal, Hans Knappertsbusch Bayreuth Festival, 1955 (Profil Hänssler, 2023) US | UK | DE

Dip Your Ears: No. 284 (Knappertsbusch’s 1955 Bayreuth Parsifal)

Kna’s long-lost Parsifal, the last one to await full issue, is now available. Was it worth the wait?

Parsifal-Aficionados had to wait a long, long time for this: The recording of the 1955 Bayreuth performance under Hans Knappertsbusch. An interpretation of primordial power, forward momentum, dynamism. A recording of vocal superlatives from the 30-year-old Fischer Dieskau as Amfortas; with Ramon Vinay and Martha Mödl at peak voltage. In short: One of Bayreuth’s finest hours. At least such were the rumors.

To make it even more tantalizing: For years, this Parsifal could only be experienced partially and unofficially. Namely only by way off an aircheck of a BBC broadcast of the second act. Adding further to the intrigue: The complete tapes were known to exist in the archives of Bavarian Radio; my colleague Klaus Kalchschmid had seen and heard them.

When said colleague Klaus and I visited the Wagner-discography expert Frank Schöneborn in Aachen, the latter – before putting on this aircheck as the very last snippet of Parsifal to listen to – pronounced: “Kna was at the absolute height of his powers here! And these singers… fantastic. It absolutely blows you away!” And this opinion was based on that old, wildly imperfect recording in, frankly, execrable sound. The musical instruments were hardly recognizable as such. The sound came and went. Everyone and everything howled; it was like listening to an old C-90 cassette that had been left in the glove compartment on a hot summer’s day.

Myth v. Reality

It’s a truism of record collecting, as any ionarts-reader will be aware, that the best recordings are always those that are the most difficult to source. Alas, the grail is ever only the grail in searching, rarely in finding. Now Profil/Hänssler has issued the tapes from the BR archives, at long last, closing the last remaining gap in the Parsifal/Bayreuth discography of Hans Knappertsbusch. Naturally you’ll wonder: Does the reputation survive the availability? Well, this much up front: The modest mono-sound of this release feels like high fidelity, compared to the BBC bits. The voices come out nicely, indeed. As far as the two dimensional orchestra goes, however, these tapes don’t begin to approach the vivid stereo image of the 1962 Philips recording. (But then, neither do any of the other Kna/Parsifal recordings, where every orchestra group – strings, brass, woodwinds – sounds the same.)

The tempos are, by Kna’s standards, on the taut side and similar to ’62; only in 1960 was he a shade less slow. In this, the recording is a nice and welcome contrast to the other (somewhat dreary) Knappertsbuschian Parsifals of the 50s. Amid the so-so-OK sound, you can also hear that, vocally, nothing went particularly wrong. Ludwig Weber’s Gurnemanz sounds a little taxed. Martha Mödl truly is at the height of her goosebumps-inducing powers as Kundry. Neidlinger’s attractively-evil Klingsor almost makes you want to switch sides, and Fischer-Dieskau’s Amfortas is decidedly not mannered, but fresh and surprisingly (given the character’s disposition, not the singer’s age) healthy. Ramón Vinay’s Parsifal, however, barks and lumbers, which is surprising, even if it actually suits the crude Parsifal of Act I rather well. Subsequently, Vinay proves, in lyrically convincing ways, that this was, indeed, a choice on his part. The chorus is more coordinated than in 1951, which, admittedly, is saying little. That ensemble would go on to improve, year over year. The Eduard Steingraeber Parsifal-piano, specifically made for the bells in Parsifal, sounds – how to put this… awful. Brash and not particularly bell-like, either.

This issue is a collector’s dream-come-true – and no self-respecting Parsifal-obsessed Wagnerian will forgo the experience of having and having heard this recording. For everyone else, it’s a case of “be careful what you dream about” – if you are among those, you can stick with your favorite recording of Parsifal, be it with or without Kna’, and know that you are not missing out on anything. (Jed Distler, over on ClassicsToday, likes it a bit better than I do, btw.)

The 1962 Parsifal Redeemed

As far as Kna’ and his Parsifals in general are concerned, that two-day listening session (and subsequent listening) have established quite definiteively to these ears (but also to Schöneborn, that the 1962 Philips recording is the best of all his Bayreuth Parsifals, and by a very wide margin. Not only is the sound in a completely different league from every other recording (which means that you can actually hear the instruments in the orchestra, as opposed to a vague, two-dimensional Wagner-like orchestral mixture), the orchestra and chorus are caught in much better shape than anywhere else, too. Also the interpretation is probably the most statisfying of Knappertsbusch’s, in doing well what he did well and avoiding some of the pitfulls that, on record at least, didn't translate quite so well... The singers are very good to good-enough: Only Irene Dalis will never be to everyone's taste; if one could airlift the 1953 Martha Mödl (Kna') or the 1970 Gwyneth Jones (Boulez) or the young 1985 Waltraud Meier (Levine) into this recording, one might. But Dalis is certainly not ruinous to the efforts and neither is George London, whose magnificent Amfortas adorns seven of Kna’s Parsifals (51 to 53, 57, 61 to 63) might arguably be 'least magnificient' specifically in this outing.

The second-most famous 1951 version, meanwhile, probably suffers probably most from direct comparison (entries are off, imprecise strings), but some of that has to do with the expectations it comes with. The same, ultimately, goes for the 1955, which is not, however, as bad as it might have reasonably feared to be, sound-wise. Something for the Parsifal-curious then – but if you are, you already knew that!

Knappertsbusch varies his tempi quite a bit. Turns out that his quickest, from 1962, is also his best, offering compassion rather than pathos. The ’51 recording sounds awfully grave and a bit uniform, with little energy. Knappertsbusch seems to start and re-start the orchestra over and over. At the dramatic peak, London is left to his own devices and when London passes his duties to Windgassen, the interpretation feels a lot slower than Levine’s, despite lasting just as long. The latter really brings out the augustness of this moment, perfectly timing orchestra and singers. A pity you don’t trust Peter Hofmann that he is quite cut out for the duties ahead. (Frank Schöneborn)

As a bonus: Below will follow a Knappertsbusch-Bayreuth-Parsifal Survey: Follow @ClassicalCritic