Gliding towards the Grail: David Breckbill evaluates a sleek new ‘Parsifal’ from Marek Janowski

Review of Parsifal, conducted Janowski, Berlin 2011 (PentaTone, 4 CDs).

November 2012, Volume 6, Number 3, 93–6.

The third release (although second to be recorded) in PentaTone’s bicentenary Wagner opera cycle is devoted to Wagner’s swan song. As one might expect from the Holländer and Meistersinger that have preceded it, Marek Janowski’s performance does not feature excessive weight or metaphysical rumination; rather, it flows naturally and alertly, sometimes quickly, and always ‘musically’. Some of these characteristics, of course, do not tend to be those associated with the most moving and expressively charged performances of Parsifal; thus, coming to terms with this performance involves expanding the scope and nature of what one notices in the work.