Andrew Clements 

Wagner Without Words review – Llŷr Williams’ entrancing, technically superb set of piano works

Llŷr Williams displays great skill and feeling in this inventive collection of Wagner's original piano works, writes Andrew Clements
  
  

Llŷr Williams
Equal to the toughest challenges … Llŷr Williams. Photograph: John Ferro Sims Photograph: John Ferro Sims/PR

As Llŷr Williams points out in his introduction to this collection, Wagner wrote more original piano music than is realised – almost two hours of it in all. He includes six pieces here, only two of which are really substantial – a rather long-winded Fantasy from 1831, when Wagner was 18 and clearly in thrall to Beethoven, and the much more cogent and interesting Sonata for the Book of Mrs MW of 1853. MW was Mathilde Wesendonck, whom Wagner had met the previous year; the single-movement sonata that he dedicated to her was composed just before he started work on Das Rheingold, yet some of its chromaticisms look even farther forward, to the world of the most significant work that Mathilde would inspire, Tristan und Isolde.

Williams interleaves these and the other, slighter original pieces – a Song without Words, the little set of Zurich Waltzes, a couple of Albumblätter – between the operatic transcriptions that are the main business of his discs. All Wagner's major stage works are represented, from Rienzi to Parsifal, though only two pieces are based on parts of the Ring. Most of the transcriptions are by Liszt, but two – of Siegfried's Rhine Journey from Götterdämmerung, and the Prelude to Die Meistersinger – originated with Glenn Gould, who arranged the music for two pianos, the second of which he overdubbed in the studio; Williams does the same, but refines them even more, adding an extra episode to the Götterdämmerung extract. He is also responsible for the sequence from Parsifal – a 20-minute, three-movement suite that consists of the Transformation Music from the first act, part of Parsifal's encounter with the Flower Maidens from the second, and the Good Friday Music that ends the third.

It's a totally convincing collection, and technically superb; Williams is equal to the toughest challenges that Liszt presents, but always puts Wagner first. Whether it's the sparklingly clean articulation of the Spinning Chorus from The Flying Dutchman, the ethereal chords of Elsa's Bridal Procession from Lohengrin, or the glorious unfurling of the main theme of Rienzi in Sancto Spirito Cavaliere, everything has a sense of dramatic purpose, as well as power and tonal beauty; the colours Williams creates from the keyboard in Siegfried's Rhine Journey and the Parsifal suite are radiant and entrancing.

 

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