Flight of the Valkyries

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by toptentwist, Sep 13, 2014.

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  1. toptentwist

    toptentwist Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    I'm assuming that the recording for "Flight of the Valkyries" used in Apocalypse Now is an excerpt from a longer recording.

    I believe it's by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

    Can anyone point me to a CD with the full performance ?

    The official soundtrack album(s) only give us about 2 minutes.


    I realize it's fairly easy to find other performances of the same piece.
     
  2. Dunk

    Dunk Member

    Location:
    London, England
  3. Spacement Monitor

    Spacement Monitor Forum Resident

  4. toptentwist

    toptentwist Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Houston, TX
  5. kendo

    kendo Forum Resident

    I used to have this 12" single. I'm not sure if it's from the OST but it is excellent.
    (more info on Discogs)


    [​IMG]
     
  6. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    That looks like a good album, but boy are the track listings screwed up.

    Ride of the Valkyries is the prelude to act three of the third opera in Wagner's Ring, The Valkyries or Die Walküre in German. Ride of the Valkyries is the only track from the the opera. The other operas are in parenthesis in the track list except for Sigfried's Funeral March which is from Götterdämmerung. Track 2, The Pilgrim's Chorus from Tannhauser is one of my favorite bits of Wagner.
     
  7. feinstei9415

    feinstei9415 Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Bend, IN
    Slight correction to above post....Second opera in Wagner's Ring.
     
  8. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Whoops, stupid me:oops: Especially since I've seen the whole thing live
     
  9. toptentwist

    toptentwist Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    I ordered the CD referenced in the amazon link above.

    I'm curious if it it will come with liner notes.

    I looked at George Solti entries on discogs.com and it looks like he released a fair number of things that featured Wagner.

    Not sure if those are all separate recordings - or if they were the same recordings packaged and repackaged.

    I saw one box set from 1967 that completely confused me. Looking at photos of the box, it almost appeared like a CD box set (especially the "track times" which were all very very LONG)... I think it was a box set of reel to reel tapes. It was hard to tell from the photos.

    The earliest thing I saw that had Solti's name on Die Walküre was a 1959 FFrr stereo album of a 1957 performance. Ffrr stands for "full frequency range recording"...
     
  10. eeglug

    eeglug Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL, USA
    The Solti recordings of the entire Ring cycle are a landmark both in his career and in the history of that opera cycle and in recorded operas in general. Whenever someone is trying to get into Wagner's Ring, discussion and recommendations for the 'Solti Ring' are not far. There may be stray Solti performances of parts of the Ring from other times but the cycle he recorded from 1958-1965 is the big monolith in the room. Some favor other interpretations...it's 14 hrs in all so there's no one interpretation that can truly definitively encompass this work. But many would choose Solti's as *the one* to go for.
     
  11. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    He recorded the major Wagner operas in Decca. The sampler is from those recordings. There are some scattered live recordings and radio broadcasts. Testament just released a radio broadcast recorded live a couple of years before the Decca Ring. I haven't heard any of the non Decca recordings. I did buy a boxed set last year of all the Decca recordings. I haven't listed to all of them yet but those I have listened to are all decent versions.
     
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2014
  12. Greg Arkadin

    Greg Arkadin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit
    Probably the most exact way to ascertain the performance information is to access the end credits. Oddly, for Apocalypse Now the credits seem to be removed on Netflix (not just shrunk--gone entirely).
     
  13. toptentwist

    toptentwist Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    The end credit for "Apocalypse Now" have had an interesting history.

    The original prints of the film had no credits displayed on the screen. Theater patrons were handed some kind of printed handout.

    Then when the film went "wide release" (more screens), there was a set of credits at the end. Many people saw those credits - and Coppola was concerned that he had made a mistake by showing the destruction of the compound behind the credits.

    At some point the same end credits were altered and subsequent prints (or perhaps just home video versions) had the same credit scroll over a plain (black?) background.

    I suspect videotapes and laserdiscs had this plain scroll.

    When DVDs came along, there was a special feature that explained the story of the end credits - and I believe the footage of the destruction of the compound was included as a bonus feature (with Coppola talking over it - so as to prevent someone from misinterpreting what he wanted to say).

    I believe the official home video versions are basically now like the original theaterical experience - with credits found somewhere in the printed materials (or maybe available as a special feature).

    It's probably a problem that streaming services (i.e. netflix or amazon) don't include them... but not sure if there is a legal obligation to do so. The fact they are missing from netflix seems consistent with the latest home video product. I just watched the newest blu ray version last week.

    The new 2.35 ratio aspect ratio IS well worth the Blu ray upgrade for those who are contemplating a purchase. Same can be said about the bonus feature (the "Hearts of Darkness" making of documentary)
     
  14. toptentwist

    toptentwist Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    That box set I saw that had the incredibly long "track" times MUST have been a reel-to-reel product.

    The release date was 1967.

    The times on each track were about 1 hour each... clearly not suitable for vinyl.

    I'm thinking that most pre-recorded reel tape products were probably very empty (with very little tape in the middle of a larger reel) and that if you used enough tape to fill an entire reel - and it was dubbed at the slower
    speed - you might get four of five hours on each.

    I think the box was four separate things - with each holding multiple lengthy "tracks"... all too long to be on the side of vinyl LP.

    Til I find out otherwise, I'm going to assume this reel-to-reel box set is what Kilgore had on his helicopter :)
     
  15. toptentwist

    toptentwist Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    My disc (the one pointed to by the Amazon link above) arrived today.

    There isn't a whole heckuva lot of information about where each track on the CD came from - but there is a date for each track.

    Comparing that information with what's on discogs.com, the dates in the "penguin classics CD" seem to be the date of RECORDING.

    Sometimes there is a 1 to 2 year difference between the year something was recording and the year it was first released.

    With that in mind, mostly via a process of elimination, the famous recording of "Flight of the Valkryies" seems to be a 1965 performance that was first issued on a massive box set in 1967.

    http://www.discogs.com/Wagner-Georg...rge-London-2-Set-Svanholm-Gusta/master/626208

    The artwork for that product looks as follows

    http://s.pixogs.com/image/R-4114949-1386151524-1440.jpeg

    Seems to have been a 19 LP box in the US, and a 22 LP box in germany.

    I suspect there was also a reel to reel version that was more gracefully able to accommodate the length of the piece.

    A 14 CD version came along in 1997...
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2014
  16. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    It's been issued 4 times on CD

    1990
    [​IMG]
    1997
    [​IMG]
    2012 (Super Deluxe Edition) includes a few CDs of extras and a DVD documentary
    [​IMG]

    2012 - Solti: Wagner The Operas box. I don't think these are remasters. They're probably the late 90s masters
    [​IMG]
     
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