Orchestra plays Wagner (without the words)

Two months after he took charge of the Philadelphia Orchestra, in 1912, Leopold Stokowski conducted an all-Wagner program. Many more followed throughout his 29-year career as music director. Stokowski repeatedly devoted concerts to Wagner-for-orchestra, each with five or six selections.

It's been a while since the Orchestra has revisited that custom, and when Donald Runnicles conducted at Verizon Hall this month it was only half-a-Wagner concert. He led 50 minutes of orchestral excerpts from The Ring of the Nibelungun.

You might argue that Wagner without words is stupid; the music was intended to support a libretto. But keep in mind that Wagner performances in opera houses were rarely accessible until about a half-century ago. The composer encouraged orchestras to play excerpts from his operas in order to publicize his dramas. After his death, his family forbade stagings of Wagner's Ring cycle or Parsifal outside of his own opera house in Bayreuth, which he designed specifically for his own works.

Only since World War II have complete Ring cycles been routinely produced in cities large and small around the world.

Tuba invasion

Still, it's good to hear Wagner's opera music performed by a large orchestra, fully exposed in front of the audience— not hidden in a pit or (as at Bayreuth) buried underneath the stage. If symphony orchestra concerts die out "“- as some music lovers fear — future generations will be denied this sort of sonic spectacle.

Runnicles was music director of the San Francisco Opera from 1992 to 2009, so he knows his way with this music. He kept the sound very soft at times, which rendered the climaxes of Siegfried's funeral music and Brunnhilde's immolation even more crashing in contrast.

The presence of five Wagner tubas enhanced the normally lush Philadelphia string sound, and it was good to hear those instruments that look and sound halfway between a bassoon and a traditional tuba. Jennifer Montone's horn solos, onstage and off, were perfectly articulated.

Imitation Beethoven

Part of me wished that the whole concert were devoted to the Ring. Nevertheless, the pairing of Wagner with Beethoven was intriguing. The Bard of Bayreuth cited Beethoven as his idol; and Wagner's rarely performed Symphony in C major— his only symphony, written when he was 19— is an imitation of Beethoven, especially in the scherzo of its third movement.

Beethoven's First Piano Concerto was a showcase for the dexterity of Lars Vogt. The 42-year-old German pianist, now based in London, has been recording for 20 years and is just now becoming recognized. (He recorded this concerto with Simon Rattle on the EMI label.) His interpretation was clean and lean.

But Beethoven is performed all the time. When will all-Wagner concerts return? The bicentennial of his birth begins in January. I'd like to hear recently neglected Wagner pieces like A Faust Overture, American Centennial March, the overture to Rienzi and excerpts from Lohengrin and Tannhäuser. We can omit Wagner's Symphony because it's so derivative.