Wagner Parsifal Suite (arr. Gourlay) London Philharmonic Orchestra/Andrew Gourlay Orchid Classics ORC100207 47:16 mins
I have always thought a lovely little book could be made out of selected visionary excerpts from Proust’s 12-volume Remembrance of Things Past (to give the English title of À la recherche du temps perdu), and this recording is a musical equivalent. Its seven tracks are all orchestral suites from the opera – three Preludes, two pieces of transformation music and the Act III Good Friday music – and they don’t come in the order fixed in the opera itself. Hence we should probably use the word ‘constructed’, rather than ‘arranged’ or ‘selected’, to indicate what Andrew Gourlay has done.
And in Joanna Wyld’s liner note we are reminded just how often such liberties have been taken. It’s a rich tradition, from the suites arranged from the dances of Purcell’s operas, to the suites arranged from Bizet’s Carmen; from Beecham’s suites made from Handel’s operas to Stravinsky’s three suites from his Firebird, and to the orchestral pot pourri created – with Strauss’s blessing – out of Der Rosenkavalier. The clinching argument here is Wagner’s grandson Wieland’s remark: ‘The essence of the work is to be found… in the orchestra.’
This recording makes a glorious 45 minutes, with immaculately seductive playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and perfect segues from piece to piece – it all slips deliciously down. Debussy’s famous observation that this opera seems ‘lit from behind’ was never more apposite.
Michael Church