Search - Richard [Classical] Wagner, Marek Janowski, Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra :: Wagner: Preludes and Overtures; Orchestral Works

Very fine of orchestral highlights and rarities

Laon | moon-lit Surry Hills | 08/10/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This set, with Marek Janowski, offers the best disk of Wagner's early overtures and later occasional pieces that I know of, as well as a well-played disk of better-known "bleeding chunks" from the operas.



Disk One, with the French Radio Phil, offers mainstream Wagner excerpts: the _Tannhäuser_ overture, the _Tristan_ prelude, the preludes to _Lohengrin_ Acts I and III, the _Siegfried Idyll_ and the _Meistersinger_ overture, with orchestral selections from Act III. All of this is very well played, and towards the top third, let's say, of a very crowded and competitive field. That makes them very good indeed.



But disk 2, with the London Symphony Orchestra, offers some less common pieces, perhaps more enticing to the serious Wagnerian: the _Kaisermarsch_, the _Faust Overture_, the _Huldigungsmarsch_, the _Die Feen_ overture, the _American Centennial March_ and the _Das Liebesverbot_ overture.



The Janowski/LSO disk offers easily the best playing of most of this music that I've ever heard. The _Faust_ overture in particular shines, as perhaps the earliest piece of great music that Wagner wrote. As is often the case with early Wagner, it sounds a bit like unknown Beethoven, with additional orchestral flavouring from Weber, but for the first time you hear a new voice: Wagner's own. This comes in the form of a new richness and darkness in orchestration (though the version played here includes revised orchestration by the mature Wagner), plus a real and effective dramatic instinct, allied with strong and distinctive themes. Wagner said the _Faust_ overture is the piece with which he "became Wagner", and he is surely right.



Janowski even manages to convince me that there's some merit in the _American Centennial_ march, probably the worst music written by the mature Wagner, despite, as Cosima's _Diaries_ show, his sincere admiration for America. I've heard this piece in three other performances, in each of which it struck me as banal, emptily noisy, and interminable. But the London SO under Janowski work a miracle in finding some forward propulsion and argument, some contrasts of light and shade, and making the piece come quite close to working. It's only a small miracle, because even when brilliantly played this still isn't great music. But if you have to hear the American Centennial March_ at all, this is certainly the version to hear.



The _Kaisermarsch_ is perhaps beyond rescue, but again, Janowski offers as good and as committed a performance of this piece as one is ever likely to hear. He also offers the best _Huldigungsmarsch_ I know of, and excellent accounts of the _Die Feen_ and _Das Liebesverbot_ overtures. Though the very best performances of these operatic overtures that I've heard are the versions that open the Sawallisch complete sets of these two operas.



For very good versions of familiar orchestral excerpts from the mature operas, plus outstanding performances of some Wagner rarities, this disk is strongly recommended.



Cheers!





Laon



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