WAGNER, R.: Overtures

Chronique

Although the music is at best mediocre and at worst almost unbearable, although the performances are at best acceptable and at worst competent, and although the disc will be of interest only to the most fanatical collectors and the most arcane university library, this recording still has a right to exist. Because, after all, Richard Wagner was one of the greatest and most influential of all nineteenth century composers and so even his youthful works deserve to have recordings of them available. But having the right to exist and deserving to be available does not mean that this recording should be listened to for anything other than research purposes. Conductor Alexander Rahbari is a capable enough conductor, but even Wilhelm Furtwängler would be incapable of making the Overture to Rienzi sound like anything more than ostentatious claptrap. The Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra is an able enough orchestra, but even the Vienna Philharmonic would be unable to make the music to König Enzio sound like anything more than bombastic flapdoodle. And one suspects that even Wagner himself would have to be confounded by the senseless rhetoric and pointless drama of the Christopher Columbus overture, so what can one hope for from Rahbari and the Malaga except conscientious competence? Naxos' sound is clean and clear.
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