Wagner: Concert Overtures

Album review

This 2017 Naxos release by Jun Märkl and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra offers concert overtures and other orchestral works by Richard Wagner, most of which have yet to enter the standard repertoire. The overtures to Die Feen and Das Liebesverbot are taken from Wagner's earliest operas, which are rarely performed in their entirety, though these pieces may be heard occasionally as lively concert openers. Among Wagner's early attempts at composing purely orchestral music, the Concert Overture No. 1 in D minor, the Concert Overture No. 2 in C major, as well as the overtures from his incidental music to the stage plays König Enzio and Christopher Columbus, show the strong influence of Beethoven and the first signs of Wagner's own forceful personality. The final selection, Siegfried Idyll, is a freestanding fantasy that Wagner composed for his second wife, Cosima, for her birthday at Christmas 1870, and it is the most frequently performed work on what is otherwise a program of rarities. Märkl and the orchestra give solid performances that convey Wagner's youthful ambition and growing confidence at the beginning of his career, as well as the richness and lyricism of his maturity in Siegfried Idyll.
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