Thielemann Munchen

In cooperation with the Bayreuth Festival and BR-Klassik, we announce the release of Bayreuth 2020: Wagner at Wahnfried. This album features Siegfried Idyll, performed by the Festival’s Music Director Christian Thielemann and members of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, and the Wesendonck Lieder, with Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund as soloist.

The Dresden Staatskapelle has a living Bruckner tradition, stretching back a century and more, which is lovingly curated by its new music director, Christian Thielemann, who is himself a powerful advocate for the composer’s symphonies as the pinnacle of the Austro-German tradition; and in particular for the Wagnerian resonances of the Seventh, whose Adagio was shaped by news of Wagner’s death in Venice. Hugo Wolf was also deeply affected by that news; his songs, like Bruckner’s symphonies, can be seen as oblique reflections on the influence of Wagner, especially when sung, as they are here by Renée Fleming, with the utmost delicacy and intimacy.

All of Wagner’s operas require a sure hand in the pit: no run-of-the-mill répétiteur will do. But two works, in particular, depend on the conductor as much as anyone on stage for success in performance Tristan and Parsifal. By choosing these two for the first complete Wagner dramas he’s committed to disc, Thielemann is letting us know just how important Wagner’s music is to him and how seriously he wants to be taken as a Wagner interpreter. With this new Parsifal, the conductor demonstrates that he’s a Wagnerian with a point of view, and a master of the composer’s huge musicodramatic structures.