The Mahler Players - Richard Wagner In Venice

November 2021

Tracks: Matthew King (1967) - Richard Wagner in Venice: A Symphony (2021) -21:36

Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) Siegfried Idyll - 20:48

Total running time 42:24

The Mahler Players, a chamber orchestra based in the Highlands of Scotland, present their debut recording.

Founded by conductor Tomas Leakey in 2013, they spent four years playing the music of the composer they were named after, Gustav Mahler, in reduced orchestrations, alongside many new commissions.

Recently they have been focused on the music of Wagner, and in 2019 gave the Highland premiere of Act I from Wagner’s Die Walküre with acclaimed soloists Peter Wedd, Claire Rutter and Iestyn Edwards.

This CD presents Wagner not as the famous composer of operas but as a radical composer of symphonies, both real and imaginary.

Composed in 2021 by Matthew King, this Symphony brings to life for the first time many of Wagner's late sketches, left unfinished at the time of his death in 1883, and until now largely unknown and unheard outside specialist circles.

Also on the album is Wagner's beautiful masterpiece for chamber orchestra, originally titled "Symphony" and written for his wife’s birthday on Christmas Day 1870, Siegfried Idyll.

Recorded at Strathpeffer Pavilion, Highlands Of Scotland.

Includes sleeve notes.

Violin I: Emma Donald (leader), Simon Evans, Ruth Kalitski, Alexandra Darolti, Sarah Perricone
Violin II: Eleanor Cameron, Francis Moore-Colyer, Hazel Younger, David Murray.
Viola: Jon Rutter, Rachel Farmer, Ewa Bartmann
Cello: Irini Dimitriadou, Ian Sharp, Elias Rooney
Double Bass: Tam Darlugdach
Flute: Catherine O'Rourke
Oboe: Leslie Callander
Clarinet: Mhairi Callendar, Mike Weare
Bassoon: Bruce Gordon
Horn: Rob Farmer, Christine McGinley
Trumpet: Alasdair Grant

"Truly uncanny in the way it transports us into an authentically Wagnerian world . . . beautifully performed by the Scottish Highlands-based Mahler Players." Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

"A piece that plays with history, and tries to imagine something that never happened, drawing connections between tiny scraps of music which would otherwise remain forever separate and fragmentary." Matthew King.