Search - J. Weinberger, Heinz Wallberg, Hermann Prey :: Schwanda the Bagpiper

Weinberger's One Hit Wonder

L. Brown | Los Angeles | 12/12/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Recorded during February, 1979 and April, 1980 at the Concert Hall of Bavarian Radio, Munich, West Germany, Schwanda The Bagpiper, Jaromir Weinberger's most successful composition, features a mouth-watering cast with Hermann Prey, Lucia Popp, Siegfried Jerusalem, and Siegmund Nimsgern. Weinberger, who wrote in Czech, might find this performance, sung in German, to be slightly puzzling. This might not be so serious as it would be with late Dvoøák, let alone Janáèek, but sung Czech has a flavor of its own, due to the particular characteristic of the language that all words, even long ones, are accented on the first syllable. Once one gets past that, however (which may take several listenings), the performance of the cast is unsurpassed.



Heinz Wallberg, who conducted, gets the most out of the orchestra. Listen in the soft passages for the nuances that make this performance flow as smooth as silk. Though the main cast is, again, exceptional, the chorus, directed by Josef Schmidhuber, adds to their might.



I am not a professional reviewer, so please excuse my limitations. Listen to this performance and I think you will be as impressed as I was. Highly recommended."