Wagner: Opera Overtures & Preludes: Recorded Free Trade Hall, Manchester, 16-17 September 1959 and April 1959 STEREO

Release Date: 18th Apr 2011
Catalogue No: SJB1052
Label: Barbirolli Society

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Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Overture

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Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Entry of the Masters

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Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Prelude to Act 3

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Wagner: Tannhäuser: Overture

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Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer: Overture

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Wagner: Tristan und Isolde: Prelude & Liebestod

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These stereo recordings date from sessions on 16 and 17 September 1959 for Pye. (The Tannhäuser Overture was recorded at an earlier session in April 1959). The Meistersinger Overture and Act 3 Suite was popular with Barbirolli, having recorded it for HMV in 1944 and other Wagner works he recorded included the Lohengrin Preludes (HMV 1946, now released on SJB1004), the Rienzi Overture (HMV 1944). A unique opportunity to hear an all-Wagner concert from Barbirolli comes in a ‘live’ broadcast with the New York Philharmonic in November 1938 which includes the Siegfried Idyll, which he never recorded commercially (Barbirolli Society SJB1035).

Whatever qualms Wagner himself might have had about performing extracts from his operas in the concert hall, he was, as a professional musician, able to suppress them. They brought in revenue, of course, but this was not the main consideration; more important was that his work should be known and understood. He therefore sanctioned, even encouraged, the performance of excerpts from his operas, either with vocalists or, as in the present recording, in purely orchestral form.

Wagner: Opera Overtures & Preludes

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