Parsifal

In this world-premiere recording, Andrew Gourlay conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra in his new Parsifal Suite, a deftly constructed concert piece of orchestral highlights from Wagner’s Parsifal, published by Schott Music. Gourlay has sought to encapsulate Parsifal’s main orchestral elements into a seamless suite, resulting in a sumptuous 45-minute work that allows Wagner’s exquisite music to be enjoyed in a new way.

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.

Wolfgang Wagner’s arrestingly beautiful production, filmed live at Bayreuth in 1981 and directed by Brian Large, features a stellar cast led by Eva Randova, Bernd Weikl and Siegfried Jerusalem. “A production and performance that showed the festival at its finest… Wolfgang Wagner’s Bayreuth production of his grandfather’s “farewell to the world” has “an unusual beauty and logic of its own… There is an air of magic and mystery about the staging… The performance was excellent… Horst Stein [conducted] a beautifully proportioned Parsifal.” (The New York Times)

Ever since the world premiere of Parsifal at Bayreuth on 26th July 1882, the meaning of Richard Wagner's last opera has been widely discussed. Nikolaus Lehnhoff's visionary staging of this emotionally charged opera reveals a masterpiece of existential drama about human existence. Christopher Ventris and Waltraud Meier lead an inspired cast in a high definition recording in true surround sound.