Der letzte Gruß – Lieder by Hermann Levi, Brahms, Schumann, von Herzogenberg & Duparc CD

What a comeback! Hermann Levi, the celebrated conductor of the world premiere of Wagner’s Bühnenweihfestspiel «Parsifal», already exposed to anti-Semitic propaganda during his lifetime and later defamed or hushed up by the National Socialists, returned to the Bayreuth Festival. Director Barrie Kosky gave the conductor this comeback in 2017 – at a premiere of the «Meistersinger von Nürnberg», of all things. He showed Richard Wagner as Sachs, as Stolzing and as David. It was less about Wagner’s biography than about his artistic pretensions and hypertrophic cult of the artist. Only against this background could Hermann Levi plausibly appear as Beckmesser. Now also follows a musical comeback. The baritone René Perler together with Edward Rushton have recorded a representative selection of Hermann Levi’s songs for Prospero Classical in Bayreuth, in Haus Wahnfried, using Wagner’s original grand piano.