‘Tristan’ Transfigured: For Christopher Morley, wonderful playing can’t make up for what’s missing from this arrangement for string septet

Though the soloist ensemble D’Accord launched its project of pint-sized distillations of large-scale works some years ago, it was the onset of the Covid pandemic lockdowns which turned its attention to Wagner operas. D’Accord’s paraphrases of Lohengrin, Tannhäuser and Tristan und Isolde have been heard as pocket operas at Wahnfried for the Bayreuth Festival, Ludwig II’s royal castle at Hohenschwangau and several times in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, usually performed with a witty and informative narration by a well-known speaker.