WAGNER: “Siegfried Idyll”; WAGNER/GOULD: “Siegfried Idyll”; Prelude...

WAGNER: “Siegfried Idyll”; WAGNER/GOULD: “Siegfried Idyll”; Prelude to Act I from “Die Meistersinger,” “Dawn” and “Siegfried’s Rhine Journey” from “Gotterdammerung.” Glenn Gould, piano; members of the Toronto Symphony, conducted by Glenn Gould. Sony Classical SK 46279. Completed on Sept. 8, 1982, a month before Gould’s death, “Siegfried Idyll” was his last recording as well as his conducting debut on records--and what a compelling debut it was. Unreleased until now, Gould’s “Idyll” is achingly slow--even more so than his piano transcription--yet it holds your attention by lingering meaningfully over harmonic details that everyone else glosses over. Clearly Gould would have been an intriguing maverick of the podium had he lived. The CD is filled out with Gould’s controversial 1973 LP of Wagner transcriptions, with its spectacular expansion of the thickest passages via overdubbing.