Second things first: if there was a CD cover and booklet of the year award, this release would walk it. You get little less than the potted contents of Zurich’s outstanding Wagner bicentenary exhibition, with details and illustrations of everywhere the composer lived and journeyed in and around the country and its principal town.

The musical choice, though, remains a little baffling. Rheingold, Walküre yes – conceived and created (mostly) on site here. Holländer – OK, the first of his works given here (in the presence, inter alios, of Johanna Spyri, creator of Heidi) but relatively not significant enough to justify the longest playing time; Götterdämmerung – well no, not in this final version. They should have tried the (wonderful) reconstruction of the original Siegfried’s Tod duet, recorded on the Guild CD ‘Musik in Zürich’ alongside music by Wagner’s contemporary Swiss composers.

And, for heaven’s sake, why no Tristan – surely the Swiss Wagner opera? About the performances, however, no doubts. The baritone (familiar to us from last year’s Hallé/Elder Walküre – 8/12) is in rich voice, especially chilling in the Dutchman’s monologue. And all Zinman’s success in the German repertoire from Beethoven to Strauss breeds period-conscious, exciting Wagner from him and his players, never over-bloated to a later-in-the-century sound.

Once you have this CD physically in your hands, you probably won’t be able to resist it. It’s virtually worth buying as a book – and listening is a delight. But it’s a wasted opportunity, repertoire-wise, in this Wagner 200 year.