Orchestral highlights from Wagner's ‘Twilight of the Gods’

Elizabeth Alker showcases the best performances by BBC orchestras, choirs, ensembles and other great performing groups from Europe and around the globe.

This week Classical Live explores opera without words and today Elizabeth features an exclusive recording with Daniele Gatti conducting orchestral highlights from the final part of Wagner's epic music drama, The Ring of the Nibelungs. We also have concert recordings from Portico of Ards in County Down and in the wake of his sad death in February, an archive performance of the Hungarian pianist and conductor Tamás Vásáry playing operatic transcriptions by Liszt.

Richard Strauss
Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40
Santa Cecilia Orchestra
Daniele Gatti (conductor)

Franz Liszt
Paraphrase on the quartet from Verdi's 'Rigoletto'
Tamas Vasary (piano)

Richard Wagner
Orchestral excerpts from 'Götterdämmerung'
Dawn and Siegfried’s Rhine Journey; Funeral March
Guglielmo Pellarin (horn)
Santa Cecilia Orchestra
Daniele Gatti (conductor)

From Portico in Ards:
Carlos Salzedo
Variations on an theme in the antique style Op. 30
Manuel Ponce
Intermezzo
Pierick Houdy
Sonata for harp (1st mvt)

Thomas Tallis
Lamentations of Jeremiah: Part 2
Gesualdo Six
Owain Park (director)