To mark the 10th anniversary of Nikolaus Harnoncourt's death, Sony Classical is releasing a unique concert recording with works by Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and - a sensational rarity - Richard Wagner. It is no longer often the case that previously unreleased recordings emerge from the estate of an important conductor - especially in the case of an artist as well-documented in discography as Nikolaus Harnoncourt. And so it is a minor sensation that the ORF recording made during the 1999 Styriarte also includes three works that were previously not to be found in the discography of the Austrian conductor, the tenth anniversary of whose death is on March 5: In addition to Robert Schumann's enigmatic "Requiem for Mignon", there are the excerpts from the Wagner operas "Tannhäuser" and "Tristan and Isolde", which Harnoncourt had placed on the program of his concerts entitled "Isolde's Liebestod" together with the overture "Die schöne Melusine" by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Harnoncourt, who did not see himself as a Wagner interpreter, took the overarching theme of "Love" at the 1999 Styriarte as an opportunity to tackle Richard Wagner's music for the first (and only) time as a conductor. Although much of Wagner's work can be subsumed under the theme of "love", the opera "Tannhäuser" and the music drama "Tristan und Isolde" are exemplary in their own right, so it was logical to select concert versions of these works in particular for Harnoncourt's only attempt at Wagner. The "Tannhäuser" overture and the "Venusberg" music can be heard, as well as the prelude to "Tristan" and the "Liebestod" with Violeta Urmana as the soloist. Following his own dramaturgy, Harnoncourt framed his excursion to Wagner with two works by composers who, beyond the thematic links between the works, have close but also ambivalent references to Wagner: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Robert Schumann. It is a particular stroke of luck to be able to listen not only to Nikolaus Harnoncourt's live commentary on this recording made on June 23, 1999 by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, but also, thanks to the Harnoncourt Archive at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz, to gain an insight into Harnoncourt's conducting scores and the accompanying notes and thus to be able to penetrate even deeper into the conductor's world of thought. The corresponding QR codes can be found with the text of the respective work in the booklet of this edition