The German conductor Hans Knappertsbusch (1888-1965) was a staple at the Bayreuth Festival from its resurrection in 1951 until 1964. Post WWII ‘Kna’ (as he was known) was a golden boy, dismissed from his post at the Bavarian State Opera by the Nazis in 1936 for repeatedly refusing to join the party and, so it was said, for disparaging the Führer. 

During his 14 years on the Green Hill, he became indelibly associated with Parsifal, an opera he conducted every year bar one (he skipped 1953 after falling out with Wieland Wagner who had cut the dove at the end of Act III). Indeed, 1964 was not only his final Parsifal, but a nasty fall meant that these were his last ever public performances.

Knappertsbusch has a curiously chequered reputation on disc. Studio recording didn’t always find him at his most spontaneous, but captured live he could be unbeatable. His Parsifal recording from the 1951 Festival is dessert island disc fare, an interpretation remarkable for its sheer breadth. Although the performance at times seems glacial,...