The third volume of The Flagstad Recitals couples music by Wagner and Mahler. Flagstad’s LP of Wagner scenes recorded with Hans Knappertsbusch is complemented by the ‘Todesverkündigung’ from Act II of ‘Die Walküre’ with Sir Georg Solti as well as the ‘Immolation Scene’ from ‘Götterdämmerung’ from a Norwegian broadcast performance conducted by Øivin Fjeldstad. Also […]

The fourth volume in ‘The Flagstad Recitals’, comprises two LPs Kirsten Flagstad made with the London Philharmonic and Sir Adrian Boult in December 1956 (Bach and Handel: CD2) and April 1957 (Sacred Songs: CD1) at London’s Kingsway Hall. The Penguin Guide to bargain Compact Discs praised the ‘sacred pops’ CD for the ‘vivid projection’ of […]

The first of four 2-CD ‘Flagstad Recitals’ features Kirsten Flagstad in Brahms and Schubert on CD1 as well as CD premieres of songs by Schumann (including her previously unpublished ‘Zum Schluss’), Strauss, Wolf and Sinding on CD2. Her great power and control placed her among those with the natural capacity for success in the ‘big’ […]

In her autobiography (The Flagstad Manuscript, 1952), Kirsten Flagstad tells of the joy she experienced on finding when she began to give concerts in the United States that the Americans so took to the songs of her native country and particularly of Grieg. She herself had been brought up with them and even included some […]