Wagner’s The Ring Without Words

If you prefer to experience Richard Wagner's epic music in appetizing bites at the concert hall rather than as a full course meal at the opera house, the Seattle Symphony offers The Ring Without Words, an arrangement of the operatic tetralogy for orchestra alone. Distilling 18 hours of music into a digestible 60 minutes, this chronological adventure includes such highlights as the Ride of the Valkyries, Wotan’s Farewell, Siegfried's Funeral March, Brünnhilde's Immolation Scene and Forest Murmurs. Viewed as a symphonic journey stripped of any literary program, the music expresses the nuance and power of Wagner as an orchestrator. Soloist George Li balances the program with the one-movement Piano Concerto No. 2 by Franz Liszt, a close friend and advocate of Wagner. Together, these two composers helped shape the "music of the future."