Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Tristan und Isolde – An Orchestral Passion (Symphonic compilation arr. Henk de Vlieger)
Staatskapelle Weimar/Hansjörg Albrecht
rec. live, 25 June 2022, Konzerthaus Weimar (Weimarhalle), Germany
Oehms Classics OC1729 [58]
As a self-confessed Tristan nut, I can never get enough of this music, but equally, as a “voice man”, I quail at the thought of bleeding chunks denuded of the vocal element. Having said that, I very much like the orchestral Ring played by the Duisburger Philharmoniker under Jonathan Darlington on the Acousence label, which condenses the whole Ring into two parts lasting an hour and a half, so I suppose compressing the musical essence of Tristan und Isolde to within an hour is not such an unfeasible proposition. The note in the booklet – which is of rather cramped, amateurish design, with an odd admixture of typefaces – makes quite ambitious claims for this arrangement’s comprehensiveness and indeed it does encompass many more of the key themes and leitmotifs than previous orchestral distillations such as that by Stokowski.
The opening Prelude is beautifully played but at nine minutes is far too business-like for my taste; I prefer to hear more erotic languor and most conductors take eleven, twelve, thirteen and more minutes to spin out its anguished yearning. The second movement, “Isoldes Liebesverlangen” (Isolde’s Desire for Love) , has some nicely distanced and atmospheric offstage horns and generates a fair amount of heat but again sounds rather more rushed than ecstatic. The third movement, “Nachtgesang” (Song of the Night) is by far the longest at over seventeen minutes and of course encompasses “O sink hernieder” at its heart but again, I miss the sense of timelessness which more disembodied, rhapsodic accounts of this music exude. Perhaps this failing is inevitable in a purely instrumental rendering of this music, divested of the human vocal element, and I recognise the virtuosity of the strings here in particular, but it is hard for anyone familiar with the original not to feel short-changed. The best thing here is the passage narrating the discovery of the clandestine lovers in flagrante by King Mark’s hunting party, as the urgency of the arrangement is best suited to moments of high drama. The Act III “Prelude and Round Dance”, too, is such wonderful music – the epitome of boundless, burning longing – that this soulful rendering, with its mournful cor anglais solo, superbly played by Ting Chiao-Yu, certainly makes its mark – only the whole point is that it is but a prelude to Tristan’s desperate rant here transcribed in “Tristans Vision”, but which we cannot have other than in orchestral terms, which remain inadequate. “Ach, Isolde, Isolde! Wie schön bist du!” must be sung! My response to the purely instrumental “Liebestod” is exactly the same: here, it is glorious music missing a dimension.
I wonder about whom this recording is for, in that Tristan aficionados like me will be frustrated by the paring down of the music and default to the opera as offering a more moving experience; perhaps it is for more impatient souls or those allergic to Wagnerian voices. It is not exactly that I do not enjoy listening to this music so well played but rather that I cannot say that I feel any compulsion to return when I can listen to the real thing, especially given that it furnishes the more impatient, would-be Wagnerian with a rather brisk and brusque traversal of a work which can offer so much more if you surrender to its cumulative power over its proper length.
The sound here is impeccable and there is not a squeak from the audience. I can imagine enjoying this as a live concert performance but for repeated home listening it is surely no substitute for the opera as Wagner conceived it.
Ralph Moore
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