Tristan Horx

This new recording from the Staatskapelle Weimar under Hansjorg Albrecht presents a rarely heard compilation of Richard Wagner’s themes from Tristan und Isolde, arranged for orchestra by Henk de Vlieger (b. 1953). This is Hansjorg Albrecht's follow-up Wagner recording to his album Der Ring Ohne Worte (OC1872). The Staatkapelle Weimar dates back to 1491, making it one of the oldest orchestras in the world, and one that is more than familiar with the works of Richard Wagner.

The first chamber music album 'Ravel & Chausson' by Claire Huangci as part of the Trio Machiavelli has been released today. The combination of Maurice Ravel's Piano Trio and Ernest Chausson's Piano Quartet marks an encounter between two works of opposite character.

When we turn to live recordings, we enter another world, one in which the performances have, on the whole, a greater consistency of thought and execution. That applies in spades to the famous Bayreuth set of 1966. Karl Böhm's swift, incandescent, very theatrical interpretation isn't to everyone's liking. Yet, for all the fast speeds, the charge of superficiality is misplaced. Böhm's direct, cogently thought through reading, in which tempo relationships, inner figures (as one might expect from a Mozart and Strauss specialist), and instrumental detail are all carefully exposed and related to each other, offers rich rewards. Expressive intensity is here married ideally to a transparency of texture.

This 1928 recording–with several cuts, particularly in the last act, which is cut in half–is a great curiosity. (As a bonus, the third CD, after the abbreviated last act, contains about 40 minutes of the last act in an excellent 1927 performance starring Walter Widdop and Gota Ljungberg and a brief but enlightening discussion of Wagner's leitmotifs and their uses by scholar Ernest Newman.) The two leads, Gunnar Graarud as Tristan and Nanny Larsen-Todsen as Isolde, are more lyric-voiced singers than we're used to in this music, and so the performance seems somehow more intimate (I doubt they would have been as effective in the theater as they are on this recording). Anny Helm is a thrilling Brangaene, and the others are good.