All in the timing: Michael Tanner listens to the tempos of Wagner's Ring.(Critical Essay)

Richard Wagner was a great conductor--possibly the greatest ever, but he never conducted a full performance of any of his later works. There were two reasons for this curious lapse in his career. First, when he was involved at all with performances of his own work, he was concerned with overseeing the whole endeavor; second, by the time of the first two Bayreuth Festivals, in 1876 and 1882, he was a sick man, increasingly prone to heart spasms and numerous other physical disorders, all faithfully chronicled in his wife Cosima's Diaries.

However, as the exponent of conducting as an art of major importance, he wrote a good deal on the subject. His general attitude ...