Wagner: Wesendonck-Lieder: Overtures and Preludes, etc

Some UK listeners still associate Franz Welser-Möst with his unsuccessful years with the London Philharmonic in the early 1990s. Taped live in Cleveland earlier this year, however, this disc of Wagner extracts is a reminder of what a powerful musician he subsequently became. There's one weak link – the Wesendonck-Lieder – which is awkwardly recorded. Soprano Measha Brueggergosman is placed so close to the microphones that you're far more conscious of the pulse in her tone than of her fine way with the foetid imagery of the text. Elsewhere things are magnificent, from the refined, very pervy performance of the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, to the gossipy counterpoint of the Meistersinger Overture, via an astonishingly sensual Prelude to Act One of Lohengrin. The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the greatest in the world – the playing is perfection.