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Track(s) taken from SIGCD388

Prelude to The Meistersinger from Nürnberg

composer
composer
composer

Llŷr Williams (piano)
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
Recording details: March 2014
Wyastone Recording Studio, Monmouth, United Kingdom
Produced by Judith Sherman
Engineered by Andrew Mellor & Mike Hatch
Release date: September 2014
Total duration: 9 minutes 14 seconds

Cover artwork: Photograph by Benjamin Ealovega.
 

Reviews

'The Welsh virtuoso's idea of juxtaposing a selection of Wagner's uneven piano works with transcriptions is pianophile catnip. Wagner's 'long-winded' Fantasy, written at 19, and his effusive Sonata for his Tristan muse, Mathilde Wesendonck, are the most substantial original items, surpassed by Liszt's elaborations of extracts from Tristan, Tannhauser and Rienzi. Williams's reduction of Glenn Gould's four-hand Meistersinger Overture and his own Parsifal arrangements are highlights. An uplifting disc.’ (The Sunday Times)
This Glenn Gould transcription is of Wagner’s contrapuntal tour de force, the Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Wagner himself presented this Prelude as a self-standing work some six years before the first production of the complete opera, and it has been a popular part of the orchestral repertory ever since: but such is the richness of its contrapuntal detail—as lightly carried as is the contrapuntal feat of the finale of Mozart’s 'Jupiter' Symphony—that it is an understandably rare treat to hear it performed as here in a piano arrangement, with a little help from what Gould calls 'constructive cheating'!

from notes by Daniel Jaffé © 2014

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