Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Solti's Ring

Ever since I posted this as a review of Life and Death, I have wondered how it could be that a recording of Wagner's Ring, even one by so great a conductor as Georg Solti, could possibly sell so many records, 25 million as I recall. Perhaps they are counting each disk one at a time. Even if you buy it now on CD, it's 14 discs. Maybe one purchase counts as 14.

It's a great recording. Where else could you hear Kirsten Flagstad and Birgit Nilsson on the same recording? And Hans Hotter as Wotan. And James King. And Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. And Christa Ludwig. And Regine Crespin? Have we missed anyone? Even the Rhine maidens include Lucia Popp and Gwyneth Jones.

One of the Amazon comments notes that it has been released in various media, so maybe the number is real. It's just hard to believe.
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