We recommended this audio exploration of the Ring on release in 2013 - and we still do, although it's still not always easy to get outside of Australia. We noted then: "Recorded for the Decca label by Australian Wagner scholar, author and lecturer Peter Bassett, as an introduction to and commentary on Richard Wagner’s great cycle of four music dramas: Der Ring des Nibelungen. The recording uses extensive musical excerpts from the famous Decca recording featuring the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Sir Georg Solti. The set is distinguished from the fine introduction to the system of leitmotifs recorded by Deryck Cooke in 1967 by addressing Wagner’s magnum opus more broadly through its narrative, intellectual and aesthetic qualities"
If you still have not bought or listened to it, we recently discovered that it is available on only one streaming music site, the classical music only streamer, Primephonic. Should you wish to listen to it - and try the service for two months free - a good friend of the site has provided a link to a two months free Primephonic subscription. Click this link to take advantage of this, if you are not already a member. Failing that, just go out and buy the four cd set.
