Wagner

Richard Wagner was one of the most revolutionary figures in the history of music, a composer who made pivotal contributions to the development of harmony and musical drama that reverberate even today. Indeed, though Wagner occasionally produced successful music written on a relatively modest scale, opera – the bigger, the better – was clearly his milieu, and his aesthetic is perhaps the most grandiose that Western music has ever known. Early in his career, Wagner learned both the elements and the practical, political realities of his craft by writing a handful of operas which were unenthusiastically, even angrily, received. © Rovi Staff /TiVo

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.