Search - Richard [Classical] Wagner, Francesco D'Avalos, Philharmonia Orchestra of London :: Wagner: Preludes; Siegfried Idyll

Full-blooded passion

Pater Ecstaticus | Norway | 12/02/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album with music from some of Wagner's later operas is a quite a success. It starts off with a red-blooded account of the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde, conductor and orchestra making the most of the sumptuous and rich harmonics, helped by the spacious acoustics of the recording venue. Following the Prelude, the 'Liebestod' is wonderfully played, beginning with warmly sympathetic and hushed woodwinds and horns, the wonderfully full-sounding strings of the Philharmonia then picking up, at the end really lifting the music up to spheres of highest extacy, whence emerges that wonderful flute solo!, which is given full and lovely attention here. There is wonderfully spaceous and relaxed playing all around, but at the same time heaving with passion and desire.

The Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is played relaxed but powerful, maybe sounding a bit stilted here.

Then follows the Prelude to Parsifal and the Karfreitagszauber/Good Friday Music from that same opera. Here the relaxed manner plays dividents to the music, giving it extra nobility and mysticism. Long-breathed phrasing is combined with mellifluousness of tone and also power (for example the louder brass episodes in the Prelude!). Solos in the Good Friday Music are sweetly melodic and gorgeous, the flute especially beautiful here (as elsewhere).

This recording is maybe Wagner at his most mellifluous and grandiloquent, but I mean that in the best possible senses of the words. I, for one, do like it very much (as an alternative to other, equally legitimate visions by other conductors, like for example Daniel Barenboim).

As a note: if you like this album, you should really also try the album of the same conductor with the same orchestra (also on ASV, DCA 995) with a big selection of some of the most memorable music (with help from Wotan and Brünnhilde, sung by John Tomlinson and Anne Evans) from Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen; a really wonderful album as well."