&This famous set, its reissue long awaited finally makes its re-entry into the catalogue...Kempe's interpretation remains his version's main glory, a wonderfully consistent, life-enhancing view of the piece, unexaggerated in tempo, all of a piece structurally — just as it used to be at Covent Garden. No other conductor on disc, not even Karajan, surpasses Kempe in the long view, in generosity of phrasing, subtlety or rubato, or in a sharp eye for instrumental detail. In particular, the whole of Act 3, from Eva's entrance, after all the heart of the work, sweeps forward with an inevitability of pulse and a depth of feeling that warm the heart.&
-- Alan Blyth, Gramophone [2/1993]
Hans Sachs: Ferdinand Frantz
Veit Pogner: Gottlob Frick
Kunz Vogelgesang: Horst Wilhelm
Konrad Nachtigall: Walter Stoll
Sixtus Beckmesser: Benno Kusche
Fritz Kothner: Gustav Neidlinger
Balthasar Zorn: Manfred Schmidt
Ulrich Eisslinger: Leopold Clam
Augustin Moser: Herold Kraus
Hermann Ortel: Robert Koffmane
Hans Schwarz: Anton Metternich
Hans Foltz: Hanns Pick
Walther von Stolzing: Rudolf Schock
Eva: Elisabeth Grümmer
Magdalene: Marga Höffgen
David: Gerhard Unger
Ein Nachtwächter: Hermann Prey
Chöre der Deutschen Oper Berlin, Chöre der Berliner Staatsoper, Chor der St. Hedwigs-Kathedrale, Berlin
Berliner Philharmoniker
Rudolf Kempe
Studio recording in mono 19 June, 1956