Book description
Nothing in the history of recording approaches Decca's mammoth
venture in producing Wagner's Ring complete for the first time.
It was eight years in the making and this book tells the story of how
it was made and the people who made it, written by the man who - as
the recording producer - was in charge of the whole project.
Conducted by the great Georg Solti, Decca's recording has been voted
the best recording ever made. All the celebrated Wagner singers of
their age take their places in the story, including Birgit Nilsson,
Kirsten Flagstad, Hans Hotter, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gottlob Frick
and Wolfgang Windgassen. The recording was made in Vienna with the
Viennese Philharmonic Orchestra, and Culshaw displayed extraordinary
dedication to Wagner's musical requirements and to putting into
practice his own belief that a stereo recording could create a
'theatre of the mind'.
This is the story of how the recording evolved, and how it
frequently almost came to grief. More than that, it is the story of
how a new medium - recorded opera in stereo - reached fulfilment, and
how this ground-breaking recording became seen as the highly
influential gold standard for the future.
A compulsively readable, entertaining narrative Financial Times It's
a dramatic story of crisis, chaos and triumph, and Mr Culshaw...tells it
superbly Observer We now have a permanent - and worthy - account of a
monumental artistic achievement Daily Mail Mr Culshaw's book makes
stirring reading, and sets the seal on the real artistic achievement
Vogue In listening to the Decca Ring one immediately senses it to be one
of the greatest achievements ever made by a record company; in reading
Mr Culshaw's book, one knows WHY it is Scotsman
John Culshaw joined
Decca after the war as a studio assistant and went on to become
recording manager and then musical director. He pioneered the use of
stereo for recording opera, his aim being to involve the listener in
the drama and so make the opera come alive. He produced over twenty
operas after the advent of stereo.
John Culshaw was working on the last chapters of his autobiography,
Putting the Record Straight, when he died, in 1980, from a
rare form of hepatitis.
