Der arme Heinrich (‘Suffering’ rather than ‘Poor’ Heinrich, I think) was Pfitzner’s first opera, written at 24 and successfully premièred at Mainz in 1895. Numerous other productions followed, but by the time of the performance recorded here it had not been heard for half a century.

The reasons are fairly obvious: it is a lesser work than Pfitzner’s masterpiece, Palestrina, it is almost oratorio-like in its lack of dramatic action, and to modern sensibilities its plot is disturbing. The knight Heinrich suffers from an apparently incurable illness. An emissary brings news from a famous doctor in Salerno that if a pure virgin offers her life for him (it is later explained that the chosen virgin must be stripped naked and her heart torn from her body) he will be made well. A 14-year-old girl, Agnes, volunteers for the task, and only as she is about to be killed does Heinrich refuse her sacrifice. He is miraculously cured, and resolves to devote his life to humility.

It is an intensely Wagnerian opera, in its chromaticism and its use of leitmotifs, but distinctly post-Wagner in its harmony, which is very adventurous for 1895. Unstable harmony is good at evoking pain and murky guilt, but Pfitzner was already dramatist enough to realise that it also sets off the serene solemnity of Agnes very well. Her music often has something close to radiance, even mysticism, her simplicity and resolve are touching. Heinrich’s music is more frustrating.

In Act 1 he is understandably given mainly anguished declamation, though there is something of proud dignity as he says farewell to the sword that he no longer has the strength to wield. He is absent from Act 2 and it is only briefly in Act 3 that he recognises Agnes’s beauty and nobility in music of quiet tenderness accompanied by a single hushed string line. Pfitzner is already very good at subtle orchestral strokes: what we might call the ‘Heinrich motif’ is first heard in the Prelude on four muted violas.

Both Heinrich and Agnes, however, are more emblematic than real. For more human emotions we must look to her parents. Her father Dietrich, the emissary to the Salerno doctor, has a 15-minute solo describing his journey: it is a fine monologue, modelled on the Rome Narration from Tannhäuser, and with a splendid lyrical opening-out as he describes his first sight of Italy, but it tells us nothing about him. In Act 2 he and his wife Hilde become more rounded, he shocked and angered by their daughter’s resolve, she deeply hurt by it but eventually sharing Agnes’s mystic faith.

It remains, though, an oddly inhuman piece; the characterisation of the Doctor (he examines Agnes to an off-stage setting of the ‘Dies irae’) as a benign figure rather than a sinister one doesn’t help. But there are plentiful signs that the very young Pfitzner was already a composer of huge resource and astonishing inventiveness; the orchestral writing is remarkable throughout.

The performance is somewhat cut, but highly accomplished. Norbert Schmittberg, as Heinrich, is a tenor with a heroic ring but in command also of quieter and more tender utterance. Sharon Markovich and William Killmeier are both more than competent for their demanding roles and Karl Heinz Lehner, as the Surgeon, has the gravity for his, but Michaela Kaune as Agnes has a voice of exciting quality: pure and firm, capable of vehemence, child-like simplicity and fearless high notes.

Alexander Rumpf’s direction is firm but sensitive; the live recording is pretty good, only marred by what sounds like a noisy ventilation system. There are other almost unknown Pfitzner operas; if he was this good (though as yet dramatically awkward) at 24, what might those others be like?