Wagner: Rienzi Overture - SACD

Our series of works by Richard Wagner, performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Neeme Järvi, continues with a disc of early symphonies, later marches, and an overture.

Early on in his career, Wagner composed two symphonies, both of which are included on this disc. The Symphony in C, which he wrote when he was just nineteen years old, is heavily influenced by Beethoven in its character, mood, and instrumentation. Written two years later, in 1834, the Symphony in E was left unfinished, Wagner completing only the first movement and thirty bars of the second. The completed version recorded here was prepared by the conductor Felix Mottl more than fifty years later at the request of Wagner’s widow, Cosima.

The two marches on this disc are the composer’s most obvious contributions to the genre of pomp and circumstance. The Huldigungsmarsch was written in 1864 for King Ludwig II of Bavaria. The march-like rhythms and brassy colours complement sections in which the strings provide a continuously flowing movement, all leading to a jubilant conclusion. The Kaisermarsch (1871) was a commission from the publishing firm Peters, who requested from Wagner a heroic morale booster at a time when the German countries were at war with France. Having initially composed it for military band, Wagner soon rewrote it for symphony orchestra, the version recorded on this disc.

The Overture to Rienzi, Wagner’s third completed opera (1838 – 40), incorporates the melody of Rienzi’s prayer at the start of Act V, which became the opera’s best-known aria, and ends with a dazzling military march. The Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin (1845 – 47) has the energy, fervour, and brassy sounds of the Overture to Der fliegende Holländer, and displays Wagner’s lasting fascination with creating drama by symphonic means.

Kreizberg died last year at the age of only 51 and made many recordings for PentaTone. All of Julia Fischer’s concerto recordings were accompanied by him. Many of the tracks featured in this In Memoriam collection come from award winning albums and include works by Dvorak, Debussy, Wagner, Tchaikovsky and Khachaturian.

This is the second volume of a set of multi-channel Hybrid SACD recordings by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic under renowned conductor Edo de Waart that features the orchestral music of Richard Wagner. The new disc includes The Ride of the Valkyries, the Overtures ‘Die Feen’ and ‘Faust’, the Prelude to Act 3 of Die Meistersinger, and Siegfried-Idyll.

Edo de Waart was Chief Conductor of the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra from 1989-2004, and is now its conductor Laureate. His early career took off when he won the Dimitri Mitropoulos Conducting Competition in New York, and that resulted in his appointment as Assistant Conductor to Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic. On his return to Holland he was appointed Assistant Conductor to Bernard Haitink at the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and in 1973 he was appointed Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.

Although at different times in his career Richard Wagner planned series of programmatic concert overtures and one-movement symphonies, he actually wrote remarkably little concert music. This disc contains the two most substantial concert works of his maturity, the Faust Overture and the Siegfried Idyll. These works are complemented on this recording by two of Wagner’s early operatic overtures, and by two excerpts from his later music-dramas. It is the second volume of a set of multi-channel Hybrid SACD recordings by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and conductor Edo de Waart to feature Wagner’s orchestral music. The first volume (OVCL00153) was released in January and included the Preludes to Act 1 of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Preludes and Overtures from Parsifal, Lohengrin, The Flying Dutchman, Tristan and Isolde, and Tannhauser.