Fine performances, revivifying these pioneering pieces.

It would be hard to imagine a more sumptuous disc. Stokowski, in these 'symphonic syntheses', enhances Wagner's already opulent orchestration with shrewdly added instrumental lines and with the vocal parts usually given to the strings.
Then at times he thins the orchestration down for more transparent textures. José Serebrier conducts the Bournemouth SO in thrilling performances, passionate in a genuinely Stokowskian manner and treated to orchestral sound of demonstration quality.
Stokowski's aim was to provide more satisfying orchestral items in concerts than the popular 'bleeding chunks'. So in the most ambitious item, on Tristan, we have between the Prelude and Liebestod a rich orchestral version of the Love Duet. Where the end of the duet builds up to that chilling interruption from King Marke, Stokowski has it lead seamlessly into the equivalent passage in the Liebestod. It works superbly.
The selection starts excitingly with the Entry of the Gods into Valhalla and it is good to find Serebrier splendidly adding an anvil when Donner brings his hammer down. The Parsifal synthesis is limited to music from Act 3, thus ignoring the Good Friday Music. From DieWalküre comes the Magic Fire Music and, most excitingly, the Ride of the Valkyries. This is the finest of Naxos's Stokowski discs to date.

Opulent Wagner arrangements provide a stunner…José Serebrier conducts the BSO in thrilling performances