I'm not normally awake at 7am but after a bad night's sleep I was amused to hear Faure's Souvenirs de Bayreuth this morning, which I hadn't heard for a long time. Moreover, how sporting it was of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra to play it. Apparently it comes from a CD called Fun at the Festspielhaus, which I would like to own, but it seems difficult to get hold of.

More fun at Bayreuth:

Sullivan declared Die Meistersinger to be the greatest comic opera in the world. Anyone agree or disagree with that? (He had unfavourable opinions on The Ring and fell asleep during a performance of Die Walkure.)

One of the things I like about the Keilberth 1955 Ring recording is the way the notes and pictures evoke those days so well. The orchestral players came in holiday mood, some of them wearing lederhosen (there I go again). There are probably other live recordings that do it just as well or better but the only other live recording I've got is Die Meistersinger conducted by Varviso.

But that's the point, ros. We don't normally associated Bayreuth with having a good laugh. It's a challenge.

Ho, soundwave!

I've just had a flick through my book of Beecham anecdotes and, needless to say, there are a few regarding Wagner. Beecham stories should be taken as no more than entertainments, I think, but it does seem that his performances of Wagner were generally admired: even Gotterdammerung, which he professed privately to disdain. There was the time, for example, when he took the last act of Siegfried at an unseemly fast pace, supposedly because the pubs shut at 11 and the orchestra wanted to get home.

But as far as Die Meistersinger is concerned, I like the story of when he was conducting it in Cologne. There was antagonism between him and the players during rehearsals as he refused to give them the beats they asked for. "I don't care what they're used to, they're getting two in bar, not four," he would say. This continued right up to the performance, resulting in a disastrous overture. But during the course of the opera he won over the orchestra, singers and audience, resulting in a twenty-minute ovation.