Not that long ago Wagner's music used to be a closed book to me, i'm not an Opera lover, even though i do find Arias very nice, Wagner epitomises everything that i don't like in Opera, very looong works, the singing almost descends down into speech, unbelievable storylines, and even the purely instrumental music isn't conveniently presented as proper Overtures at the start of every Opera, and yet, he's a great Orchestrator, i'm sure he could of made some wonderful Symphonies, so this was actually the first disc i bought [back in 2007] that was wholly dedicated to his music, so what a pleasant surprise to really get into some of this stuff, since then i have bought other collections too, but his still remains on the fringes of my collection.
Mariss Jansons is Latvian, he is now 69 years old, he made this recording in 1991, the front cover portrait of Jansons is by Rory Carnegie, a white background, and nice shadows behind him, good pose, nice colours, the black lettering is nice.
Well i found all of these 8 pieces almost equally as good as each other, it was hard to pick a 'winner', but certainly tracks 1, 4, 6 & 8 maybe just pip the others, and i guess it's the Tannhauser Overture that i found full of the real essence of Wagner, it's the longest piece on this disc, starting out with a solemn nobility by the lower woodwinds and horns [0:00-0:56], before branching out into the cello's and strings, it truly starts to blossom [1:52+], and unfolds into a glorious fanfare on the trombones, underpinned by excited violins playing high in the treble [2:08-2:58] it's truly glorious stuff, those strings continue to come back like waves, sometimes high, sometimes low, but they're so contagious!, in the middle of the piece it goes off on a tangent, lighter music that gives a welcome respite from the darkness of the opening, but it sounds like something that Weber or Suppe would write, not Wagner at his best, the opening music comes back [10:35+], this time with very busy but light violins, and again the music froths up to a crescendo [12:15-13:42], the brass really do pull out all the stops in majesty, a lovely piece of music.
Here's Georg Solti conducting the Tannhauser Overture on YouTube.
