Hans Knappertsbusch

Hans Knappertsbusch – Wagner: Parsifal by Hans Knappertsbusch (1962/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 04:09:23 minutes | 4,45 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alexandre Bak – Classical Music Reference Recording

Parsifal (WWV 111) is a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner’s own libretto for the work is freely based on the 13th-century Middle High German chivalric romance Parzival of the Minnesänger Wolfram von Eschenbach and the Old French chivalric romance Perceval ou le Conte du Graal by the 12th-century trouvère Chrétien de Troyes, recounting different accounts of the story of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his spiritual quest for the Holy Grail.

Wagner conceived the work in April 1857, but did not finish it until 25 years later. In composing it he took advantage of the particular acoustics of his newly built Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Parsifal was first produced at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882. The Bayreuth Festival maintained a monopoly on Parsifal productions until 1903, when the opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Wagner described Parsifal not as an opera, but as Ein Bühnenweihfestspiel (a sacred festival stage play). At Bayreuth a tradition has arisen that audiences do not applaud at the end of the first act. The autograph manuscript of the work is preserved in the Richard Wagner Foundation.

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Hans Knappertsbusch – Johann Strauss II and Contemporaries: Waltzes, Polkas & Marches by Hans Knappertsbusch (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:27:14 minutes | 1,53 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alexandre Bak – Classical Music Reference Recording

Hans Knappertsbusch (born March 12, 1888 in Elberfeld (today: Wuppertal); October 25, 1965 in Munich) was a German conductor.

Hans Knappertsbusch was born as the son of a manufacturer from Elberfeld. He already showed his interest in conducting as a student by conducting the orchestra of the local gymnasium. After graduating from school, he studied at the conservatory in Cologne. There he learned conducting from the then famous Fritz Steinbach. From 1909, his early work as a Kapellmeister included Mülheim an der Ruhr, Bochum, Elberfeld and Leipzig. At the same time, he assisted the then festival director Siegfried Wagner and, above all, the Wagner conductor Hans Richter in Bayreuth from 1909 to 1912. This was a time that had a formative influence on his musical interpretation style and initiated his development as a Wagner conductor of international stature. In 1914 he first gained attention by directing the Wagner Festival in Holland. His path then led him to Munich via the Dessau Court Opera, where he became Germany’s youngest general music director in 1919. Here he succeeded Bruno Walter as director of the Bavarian State Opera and the Academy Concerts at the Odeon in 1922, a position he held until 1935. in 1924 he was appointed professor…

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