David Milsom, Style and Sonority in Wagner String Performance

The question of what constitutes a ‘Wagner string sound’ is an interesting one, not least because Wagner’s works seem still to be inextricably linked to modern, post-Romantic performance practice. The idea of a historically informed Brahms symphony or Mendelssohn string quartet is no longer a new one, the former having been attempted on record some eighteen years ago by Roger Norrington and the London Classical Players, for example; but Wagner’s music still evokes an immediate aural image of huge orchestras and thick, lush string sound, heavily laden with vibrato, to support operatic voices embodying similar characteristics.

What did Wagner actually experience where string playing was concerned?