Roger Allen, ‘Enthüllet den Gral’: Towards a Methodology of Historical Wagner Recordings

In the extensive and distinguished pantheon of Wagner critics extending from Nietzsche to such luminaries as Thomas Mann and Ernest Newman to those writing today, the names of Albert and Harold Steptoe, rag-and-bone men late of Oil Drum Lane, Shepherd’s Bush, do not spring immediately to mind as being in the front rank. In an early episode of the iconic situation comedy Steptoe and Son, entitled A Musical Evening, Harold returns from the round with a sack of shoes and a large haul of discarded gramophone records, determined to better himself by improving his knowledge of classical music. Albert, whose musical tastes are rather more prosaic, pours scorn on his son’s cultural pretensions and, as Harold attempts to lose himself in Stravinsky’s Firebird, produces an old-fashioned cobbler’s last and proceeds to ‘knock seven bells out o’ them shoes with a five-pound hammer’ – thus ruining Harold’s aesthetic experience. Harold, mightily annoyed, remonstrates with his father but to no avail. Exasperated beyond measure he then plays his musical trump card: he produces a different record from his collection and triumphantly asks his hammer-wielding father, ‘Do you know what this is? Wagner, mate! The Ride of the Valkyries! A real eardrum splitter, this!’