I enjoyed Tennstedt's earlier digital Wagner selection (concentrating on excerpts from The Ring—ASD3985, 10/81) but this one is even finer. The performances are all characteristically steady, but as before there is electribity in every bar and the playing of the BPO is absolutely first class. Tennstedt's manner is highly individual, his slow and spacious approach to the famous Pilgrims' theme opening of Tannhauser is magnetic and when the tune is reprised at the end against (at first) delicate cascades of violin scales and the climax built with the most eloquent brass playing, the effect is noble and contained instead of extrovert, with a touch of vulgarity, as it so often is. Similarly, the gorgeous string melody at the opening of Rienzi is moulded gently (almost elegiacally). The effect is deliberate but the high tension beneath the surface of the playing prevents any hint of heaviness, and later the lighter, rhythmic material on the strings is elegantly pointed, so that even when the brass enter with their resonant fanfares any hint of the bandstand is banished. At the radiant beginning of the Lohengrin Prelude to Act 1 Tennstedt lingers lovingly on detail, and surely the closing pages also have never sounded more refined on record. Unlike, say Furtwangler's early version, the performance is without a relentless forward tread; instead Tennstedt presses on just before the climax (very effectively) and then relaxes again.
Textures are fresh in Die Meistersinger and there is admirable detail. This is without the massive effect one experiences on most records (and in the concert hall) as the bass is light (a drawback I think) and the sound is without a richly glowing resonance; yet Tennstedt draws out the closing pages satisfyingly. The Third Act Lohengrin Preclude is direct and suitably brilliant without being over-done. One is struck by the fact that the BPO, who must have been through all this music so often, can under a conductor who obviously inspires them, produce playing that is at once so polished and so fresh. A most rewarding collection—one of the very finest Wagner orchestral discs in the catalogue.'