Weingartner conducted "Tannhäuser" and "Parsifal". Slim and quiet, impeccable dressed, with a rare, rewarding smile, he was the embodiment of Richard Strauss's dictum that it is the orchestra who should sweat, not the conductor. His beat was minimal but we sweated for him, filled with inevitable awe as we looked at a man who had been present at the first rehearsals of "Parsifal" at Bayreuth and could tell us with authority: "This is what the Master wanted here." At certain points in the work where there were particular chords in the wind and strings he would direct that they should overlap, rather like the sustaining pedal on the piano, so that instead of being clear-cut they would melt into each other. This authentic style of playing such passages has not been observed by later conductors, but we had the uncanny feeling of being in direct link with those first performances. << less