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Ring Resounding
Record producer John Culshaw's account of the first recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen in Vienna, 1958-65, as conducted by Georg Solti for Decca -- the first commercially produced stereo set of the massive four-opera cycle; considered a milestone in recorded music history.
276 pages, Hardcover
First published November 16, 1967
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 1, 2025
A straightforward and fascinating account of the artistic and technical history of the first studio recording of the complete Wagner’s Ring. The project took a full seven years to complete, 1958-1965, due to record company reluctance and the tight schedules of the singers and orchestra.
No computers or any form of digital signal processing was involved at any stage of recording through pressing of the LPs. All steps were completely analog. It is astonishing that with a relatively simple slide mixer, a few high quality microphones, and two not very elaborate 1/4" (?) analog reel-to-reel tape recording/editing machines complete with mechanical tape cutter and splicer, Culshaw and his team created what many consider to be the greatest recording of the entire twentieth century judging by artistic merit and technical excellence. Whether or not you like Wagner or the Ring is not the point in that ranking.
There is much detail on interaction with the singers, record company management, Viennese and Austrian culture, and an unexpected very serious incident on the last recording day. Culshaw breaks out of his chronology in the final chapter with some startlingly true predictions for 1967, including large flat-panel TV's and streaming media accessed through computers.
On the other hand, he expected that classical music would maintain in its place at the center of American culture (along with other arts of course) and even increase in popularity due to better recordings, with the quality of his work pointing the way. Unfortunately, looking back now almost sixty years, his era was about the peak (1950's through the early 1970's) of classical music culture, for both performances and listeners, at least in America. Since then, it's been more about the dumbing-down of American culture and adapting to forced technological change, rather than the advancement of musical art.
That era also hosted the last crop of the truly great Wagnerian singers who could trace their technique back through teachers and conductors to the decades after Wagner and the early twentieth century. As another reviewer simply says, they were good then, not so good now.
Our culture has changed, probably irrevocably, but this music will survive to the end of time. Culshaw’s landmark recording will remain ready for anyone who wants to step away from computer generated so-called music and frequent snippets of meaningless distraction, to listen to magnificent music in all its emotional depth and glorious length.
No computers or any form of digital signal processing was involved at any stage of recording through pressing of the LPs. All steps were completely analog. It is astonishing that with a relatively simple slide mixer, a few high quality microphones, and two not very elaborate 1/4" (?) analog reel-to-reel tape recording/editing machines complete with mechanical tape cutter and splicer, Culshaw and his team created what many consider to be the greatest recording of the entire twentieth century judging by artistic merit and technical excellence. Whether or not you like Wagner or the Ring is not the point in that ranking.
There is much detail on interaction with the singers, record company management, Viennese and Austrian culture, and an unexpected very serious incident on the last recording day. Culshaw breaks out of his chronology in the final chapter with some startlingly true predictions for 1967, including large flat-panel TV's and streaming media accessed through computers.
On the other hand, he expected that classical music would maintain in its place at the center of American culture (along with other arts of course) and even increase in popularity due to better recordings, with the quality of his work pointing the way. Unfortunately, looking back now almost sixty years, his era was about the peak (1950's through the early 1970's) of classical music culture, for both performances and listeners, at least in America. Since then, it's been more about the dumbing-down of American culture and adapting to forced technological change, rather than the advancement of musical art.
That era also hosted the last crop of the truly great Wagnerian singers who could trace their technique back through teachers and conductors to the decades after Wagner and the early twentieth century. As another reviewer simply says, they were good then, not so good now.
Our culture has changed, probably irrevocably, but this music will survive to the end of time. Culshaw’s landmark recording will remain ready for anyone who wants to step away from computer generated so-called music and frequent snippets of meaningless distraction, to listen to magnificent music in all its emotional depth and glorious length.
July 22, 2019
If you're into Wagner and like Decca's recordings of ''The Ring'' you just hàve to read this exciting account of this huge and long enterprise! I already read it years and years ago.
May 31, 2015
A surprisingly revealing account of the personalities involved in Solti's Ring recording. Culshaw did not seem afraid of pointing to the sources of problems (including himself) in producing this recording. I didn't realize people were so candid in publications in the 1960s especially for something that is connected to a commercial endeavor. Or maybe it is a British thing? It is clear he loved Kirsten Flagstad: he included a 2 page photo spread of her. It is understandable why just by hearing her on youtube. On the other end, he takes a jab at two unnamed conductors who eventually would record competing Ring cycles (one would be a live recording at Bayreuth with a similar cast as Solti's; the other a studio recording with a less-than-stellar cast).
Absolutely worth reading for anyone interested in Wagner's Ring, in the great Wagnerian singers of the past, or in the recording/production of classical music (he includes samples of his very techie plan book; sort of blends in with the technological progress being made at the time).
Absolutely worth reading for anyone interested in Wagner's Ring, in the great Wagnerian singers of the past, or in the recording/production of classical music (he includes samples of his very techie plan book; sort of blends in with the technological progress being made at the time).
April 20, 2023
A very good read for opera lovers. The eight-year creation of one of the most iconic albums of the 20th century is told first hand by John Culshaw, one of the men who made it happen. It's full of the exciting - and sometimes hilariously mundane - twists and turns that affected the recording. Culshaw's closeness with soprano Kirsten Flagstad is prominent in the first half, which perhaps is a bit extensive but also is a fascinating look at the last years of a great singer, and casts a long shadow over the rest of the book, explaining both the legacy of performers and also some of the reasons (other than money-making) that the recording mattered.
Being fifty years old, the book does sometimes betray its age. But Culshaw's thoughts on recording and the future of opera are - if anything - more interesting from our vantage point. (His thinly-disguised contempt for the so-called "enthusiast" is also sublimely hilarious.)
Being fifty years old, the book does sometimes betray its age. But Culshaw's thoughts on recording and the future of opera are - if anything - more interesting from our vantage point. (His thinly-disguised contempt for the so-called "enthusiast" is also sublimely hilarious.)
February 27, 2024
A captivating read about the wild and wildly ambitious project to record Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle. Fascinating even without a familiarity of Wagner’s music or ideas about art (although it would certainly make it a more enriching read).
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July 6, 2025I skimmed the middle, but enjoyed the beginning and ending sections, including the account of Die Walküre (the last of the four operas to be recorded by Culshaw’s team), which almost fell apart on the last day. Having now worked on a few big complicated projects in my own field, I found this too stressful to engage with for the past year, but now that those projects are wrapping up I can appreciate the familiar elements without losing sleep.
I’m especially struck by Culshaw’s reflections at the end about the consequences of recorded music and the rising generation (baby boomers): “the youngster of the 196o’s who has thoroughly immersed himself in all forms of music through the gramophone record.” Born in 1924, Culshaw becomes an ambassador between generations, with one foot planted in the stuffy old world of European high culture, and one foot in the new. He recognizes that technology will continue to advance, not just to home audio but someday to home video as well, and even interactive media. He speaks of “the ‘information avalanche’ — the inescapable fact that people in the majority of countries are maturing earlier with each successive generation, and absorbing ‘information’ of every kind — including music — with an ease and fluency and inquisitiveness that was unthinkable a few generations ago. I am quite incapable of regarding this as an unhealthy or undesirable development.”
On a live promotional tour with Solti in 1966, he encounters those youngsters directly:
That really resonates with me and my lifelong mission to help great works of art connect with audiences, with the optimistic assumption that audiences are out there, even if we don’t know who they are yet and we have to reach them in new ways.
I’m especially struck by Culshaw’s reflections at the end about the consequences of recorded music and the rising generation (baby boomers): “the youngster of the 196o’s who has thoroughly immersed himself in all forms of music through the gramophone record.” Born in 1924, Culshaw becomes an ambassador between generations, with one foot planted in the stuffy old world of European high culture, and one foot in the new. He recognizes that technology will continue to advance, not just to home audio but someday to home video as well, and even interactive media. He speaks of “the ‘information avalanche’ — the inescapable fact that people in the majority of countries are maturing earlier with each successive generation, and absorbing ‘information’ of every kind — including music — with an ease and fluency and inquisitiveness that was unthinkable a few generations ago. I am quite incapable of regarding this as an unhealthy or undesirable development.”
On a live promotional tour with Solti in 1966, he encounters those youngsters directly:
One saw, very suddenly, the enormous gulf separating this sort of audience from the metropolitan musical intelligentsia; one suddenly grasped the narrowness of what is generally considered to be the musical world, and realized the untapped potential for music in general and opera in particular once the trappings of outmoded traditions and methods of presentation can be surmounted. These were audiences thirsty for knowledge and experience, yet uninhibited about expressing strong viewpoints; ready to consider anything new or anything old, but unwilling to be led by the nose and be told what to think in the name of hallowed tradition. These were young people who already knew a lot about the Ring, though most of them had probably never seen it in the theater. Perhaps I am being sentimental, but I think their faces and their questions would have delighted Richard Wagner.
That really resonates with me and my lifelong mission to help great works of art connect with audiences, with the optimistic assumption that audiences are out there, even if we don’t know who they are yet and we have to reach them in new ways.
October 20, 2023
The 'Solti' recording of 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' made with the Vienna Philharmonic and recorded in Vienna (slightly out of sequence) between 1958 and 1965 is still unsurpassed 60 years on. That is not just my view, but one that carries a significant critical consensus. Musically and dramatically it is by far the most consistent account. Not just because of its casting (with a couple of important exceptions) with singers whose singing is never less than adequate and often more so and all of whom can act (stellar examples of both for example in Götterdamerung with Fischer-Dieskau and Gottlob Frick) but because of Solti's conception and his ability to hold to that over a seven year period. Sonically it sounds better than ever (remastered several times, the latest a Dolby Atmos remix in 2023) and crucially - as this book recounts - it was conceived of as a studio project which would capture an idealised stage version. It does this brilliantly and no subsequent set has come close, nor is it likely to. As Culshaw recounts this was an era when budgets for opera recording and classical music more generally were an all time high and it seems literally no expense was spared. Today's landscape is very different. Most opera recordings are DVDs from stage productions or of concert performances both of which can be problematic.
Anyway this is a genuinely interesting account. It's highly polite and indeed its status as the official history of this remarkable project was confirmed when Decca included it in its box set of the 2013 remastering. I found particularly fascinating that one of Culshaw's guiding principles was trying to capture great Wagnerian singers for posterity. Arguably Flagstad, Hotter, Windgassen (and I would maybe controversially add Nilsson) were all past their best, and yet (with the possible exception of Flagstad) all perform remarkably, cleverly supported by Culshaw and Solti's mindfulness of the need to give their voices as much chance as possible to recover between sessions. The account of how Windgassen ended up singing Siegfried after Culshaw had tried to stick with a relatively unknown, younger heldentenor is illuminating and reflects particuarly well on Windgassen who seemed to have no ego at all.
The written style is very of its time (BBC Third Programme syntax, standards and opinions) and the Epilogue slightly preachy and tedious but overall this is required reading for anyone who loves the recording.
Anyway this is a genuinely interesting account. It's highly polite and indeed its status as the official history of this remarkable project was confirmed when Decca included it in its box set of the 2013 remastering. I found particularly fascinating that one of Culshaw's guiding principles was trying to capture great Wagnerian singers for posterity. Arguably Flagstad, Hotter, Windgassen (and I would maybe controversially add Nilsson) were all past their best, and yet (with the possible exception of Flagstad) all perform remarkably, cleverly supported by Culshaw and Solti's mindfulness of the need to give their voices as much chance as possible to recover between sessions. The account of how Windgassen ended up singing Siegfried after Culshaw had tried to stick with a relatively unknown, younger heldentenor is illuminating and reflects particuarly well on Windgassen who seemed to have no ego at all.
The written style is very of its time (BBC Third Programme syntax, standards and opinions) and the Epilogue slightly preachy and tedious but overall this is required reading for anyone who loves the recording.
January 25, 2012
This is the behind-the-scenes story of the first recording of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung operas. It was written by the producer and provided many interesting insights into the recording of each opera, as well as the genesis of the project itself. This was a massive undertaking, with orchestra, singers, and a rabid fan base. It ends up with a discussion of recording and technology and things to come. It was written in the 1960's, and Culshaw makes some spot-on predictions about technology that is happening now.
January 24, 2015
I first read this book on its publication in 1967. It was a pleasure to revisit it some 47 years later. There have been several complete recordings of the Ring Cycle in the intervening years. There are some of those recordings that I now prefer over the Decca Ring -- in whole or in part. But the Decca Ring was where it all began and whose influence in the recording of complete, uncut operas continues to the present day. Culshaw tells a fascinating story with typical British understatement and tact.
June 28, 2010
John Culshaw was one of the engineers on Solti's groundbreaking recording of Wagner's Ring, and in this wonderful book he gives us the inside story on the music, the stars, the process. An essential guide to the background to one of the most important recording projects ever undertaken.
January 6, 2023
A must-read for anyone who loves Wagner's Ring. Culshaw's writing is insightful and approachable, highly informative, and includes some very witty anecdotes around this legendary recording and the incredible artists who made it happen.
March 6, 2023
Enjoy the time capsule of Vienna after the war in the early days of stereo. Culshaw also has a charming and relatable wit
February 1, 2017
A very interesting and informative book. Will read again.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews