With this flawed, plodding live recording, Marco Polo takes up the cudgels on behalf of the half-Jewish German composer Walter Braunfels (1882-1954). The 1990s brought us a revival of his devotional Verkündigung (EMI, 7/94 – nla) while Decca’s Entartete Musik presentation of the once-celebrated Die Vögel (4/97 – nla) brought renewed acclaim, a tribute to the excellence of Lothar Zagrosek’s conducting and a cast-list that included Matthias Goerne. Neither set is available today, which may or may not tell us something about the value of music banned by the Nazis and rarely heard after their fall.

I should say something about the plot of Prinzessin Brambilla, a tale from Hoffmann located somewhere between Nielsen’s Maskarade and Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges. Shorn of allegorical trimmings, the story concerns the passion of actor Claudio for an imaginary princess who turns out to be an exotic projection of his stay-at-home seamstress sweetheart. Braunfels’s obsession with carnival and commedia dell’arte encompasses more portentous ideas about the layers of meaning (or rather meaninglessness) surrounding us all, that thin line between fantasy and reality. Braunfels’s idiom is typically post-Wagnerian though there are neo-classical elements that recall, or perhaps pre-empt, Busoni, Prokofiev and the Richard Strauss of Le bourgeois gentilhomme. The highlight of the present performance comes when the masked lovers remove their disguises to musical invention both touching and radiant. Elsewhere the lacklustre orchestral playing and the heroine’s raw and unfocused singing are enough to destroy any atmosphere that might be generated. Ekaterina Gubanova shows much more talent in the minor role of Barbara.

There’s no libretto, only a synopsis with cues which do not always correspond to what seems to be happening. Did I mention the elephantine clumping-about on stage? Of specialist interest only, this courageous release is probably best avoided unless you attended the Wexford Festival production and are in the market for a souvenir.