In this fertile collaboration, the result of concert performances in Munich earlier this year, Simon Rattle finds true form as the great Wagnerian we always suspected he could be. His cast are top Wagner singers – among them Michael Volle (Wotan), Tomasz Konieczny (Alberich), Burkhard Ulrich (Loge), Annette Dasch (Freia) and Eric Halfvarson (Fafner). The excellent Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra delivers the climactic moments with brilliance and colour, without indulgence or heaviness and, especially in the transformation music, with rare transparency. They achieve pianissimos you never expect to hear in Wagner and, without a staging to contend with, balance between orchestra and singers is ideal and intimate. Essential listening.