| 01. Die sch?ne Melusine Overture, Op. 32 02. Commentary on Wagner’s Tannh?user by Nikolaus Harnoncourt 03. Tannh?user, WWV 70 Overture – Bacchanale (Venusberg) 04. Commentary on Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde by Nikolaus Harnoncour 05. Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90 Act I Prelude 06. Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90 Act III Mild und leise Isoldes Liebes 07. Requiem für Mignon, Op. 98 b 08. Commentary on Mendelssohn’s Melusine Concert Overture by Nikolau ten years on from his death, this newly released live recording from the 1999 Styriarte festival in Graz is a welcome reminder of Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s revolutionary approach to music. At its heart is a rare – for him – foray into the world of Richard Wagner, provocatively coupled with Mendelssohn and Schumann, two composers whose attitudes towards the Sorcerer of Bayreuth were equivocal, to say the least. He opens with Mendelssohn’s fairytale overture, Die Schöne Melusine, a bracing ride driven by resolute strings and dramatic interventions from the woodwind. The Tannhäuser Overture is quite a different matter. To a certain extent, Harnoncourt takes a Wagner-lite approach, with gossamer textures rooted in Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, a comparison that the antisemitic Wagner would surely have loathed. Purists might balk, but it’s one of the silkiest and most detailed of readings, for those curious about the actual notes on the page, it’s illuminating. |

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