Just the Way the Master Wanted It? David Breckbill weighs the pros and cons of a major new work on Wagner conductors

Review of Jonathan Brown, Great Wagner Conductors: A Listener’s Companion (Parrot Press, 2012).

July 2013, Volume 7, Number 2, 89–93.

This volume is self-evidently a labour of love. Jonathan Brown has previously published discographies devoted to recordings of Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde, and is clearly enthused by Wagner’s music and by his favourite performances of it. As so often happens with those who spend time with historical recordings, he has found more satisfaction in performances and performers of the past than he does in those of the present or more recent vintage, and has written this book with a view to reviving interest in the Wagner performances of twenty-two leading conductors (in addition to Wagner himself) born in the 19th century who were especially successful with or famous for their ways with Wagner’s works.