Wagner Without Words: David Breckbill is not at a loss for words to describe both his enthusiasm and reservations

Review of Wagner Without Words, piano Llŷr Williams, (Signum, 2 CDs).

July 2015, Volume 9, Number 2, 79–81.

Pianist Llŷr Williams is a prodigious Wagnerian. According to the testimonial by Sir Curtis Price included in the booklet of the present release, Williams was prepared to play and sing any passage from the Ring for his audition to be admitted to the Royal Academy of Music’s repetiteur course. Even given this profound knowledge of Wagner’s operas, Williams claims not to have been aware of Wagner’s output for piano until he was asked (by the editor of this journal) to give a concert during Wagner’s bicentenary year containing a mixture of original piano music and transcriptions from the operas. I happen to have had the pleasure to be present at that recital, and recall the interest inherent in hearing first a sequence of rarely performed music, followed after the interval by transcriptions of much more familiar (and, admittedly, memorable) material. The present release, Wagner Without Words, takes the concept one step further by refusing to segregate the original music from the transcriptions; rather, it creates a sequence that alternates freely between the two categories.