These broadcast performances from the Barbican were much admired when the concerts were given in 2002-3. While appreciating that the achievement of the BBC SO, not used to tackling such repertory, and the honest and involving contributions of the soloists ought to be admired, I felt by the end of the recording I was hearing fair facsimiles of Tristan interpretations but ones, by comparison with the wealth of inspired readings already available on disc, discussed in September by Mike Ashman, leaving a great deal to be desired in a crowded field.

The most serious drawback is Runnicles’s conducting. With his slow, sometimes ponderous tempi and failure to provide the true Tristan ecstasy, his interpretation remains obstinately earthbound. There’s clarity and often beauty of sound but the music usually fails to take flight. In both the confrontation of the principals in Act 1 and their love duet in Act 2, there seems a fatal failure to find the forward movement and dramatic intensity that are absolutely essential ingredients. King Marke’s monologue plods and Tristan’s agonies and ecstasies hang fire. I went back with relief to this set’s most recent rival, Pappano on EMI, and found the orchestral drive and inner feeling lacking in the new version.

Runnicles’s singers all do good work, especially Brewer who offers a cleanly and, for the most part, beautifully sung Isolde, but go to Pappano’s Nina Stemme and her stage experience is so much more telling, as is the vibrancy and variety of her tone. With onstage experience Treleaven gives a well fashioned and often intense Tristan but his gritty and even harsh tone prove hard on the ear after a while. Compare him – perhaps unfairly – with Ludwig Suthaus for Furtwängler or the eloquent Günther Treptow for Knappertsbusch and there’s no competition.

The remainder of the cast do well but they are surpassed by artists of the past – say, Christa Ludwig as Brangäne for Böhm at Bayreuth, Martti Talvela as Marke in the same performance or René Pape for Pappano, and Hans Hotter as Kurwenal for Karajan. Unfair these comparisons may be, but you are after all paying full price for the Warner set, so they have to be made and second-rate simply won’t do.

As Mike Ashman concluded in his survey, the Knappertsbusch live performance is hors concours; so in my opinion are two Bayreuth sets – Karajan’s tense 1952 version and the electrifying Böhm set of 1966-67. Furtwängler is a towering classic that will never stale but if you want the most impressive modern sound and a reading that is charged with sensuous and sensual power, go for Pappano.