The tumultuous climaxes of Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder resound like a storming of the heavens.
In this performance, recorded live in Cologne last year, an army of choirs stretches into the distance, producing a voluminous, if rather unfocused sound.
Tenor Brandon Jovanovich, though taken to his limits, makes a rousingly heroic Waldemar and Barbara Haveman a strong Tove.
Claudia Mahnke, Gerhard Siegel and Johannes Martin Kränzle complete a Wagnerian cast, swept along with élan by conductor Markus Stenz and his Cologne orchestra.