Those who remember Lovro von Matacic as the magisterial and arch-Romantic conductor of Bruckner and Wagner tend to remember him fondly. But those who remember him for siding with the Fascists in Yugoslavia and Austria during the Second World War, and with the Communists in Yugoslavia and East Germany after the war, may remember him less kindly. Matacic is dead now, but his recorded legacy lives on in a relative handful of recordings, including this 2007 release of a 1977 all-Wagner concert with his Zagreb Philharmonic and ...
Read More
Those who remember Lovro von Matacic as the magisterial and arch-Romantic conductor of Bruckner and Wagner tend to remember him fondly. But those who remember him for siding with the Fascists in Yugoslavia and Austria during the Second World War, and with the Communists in Yugoslavia and East Germany after the war, may remember him less kindly. Matacic is dead now, but his recorded legacy lives on in a relative handful of recordings, including this 2007 release of a 1977 all-Wagner concert with his Zagreb Philharmonic and American soprano Roberta Knie. These are full-bore performances that take huge risks for the sake of aesthetic truth. The Overture to Rienzi that opens the disc is easily the most formidable and the most musical performance of the work ever recorded, and would all by itself be worth the price of admission. But the "Prelude and Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde is even better, a performance that surges and soars and finally expires in luminous shimmers. And the three excerpts from...
Read Less