Increasingly, because of the limitations on contemporary performances, a greater
range and depth of performances is to be found in recordings than in the theatre.
Recourse to the recorded legacy is therefore indispensable to understanding the
full extent of Tristan's astonishing possibilities. Nowhere has this legacy yet been
properly documented.

One reason for this may be the relatively slow emergence of Tristan on record,
a sign itself of the difficulties in performance. The first complete commercial
recording was not made until 1952. This had such a profound impact that many
today consider it still to be the best, or among the best. The first attempt at a
discography was that by "Viviar" ( V. V. Rosenfeld), whose Tristan und Isolde on
Gramophone Records was produced privately in 1950 for circulation among
friends ². I have not seen a copy. He later published a discography of Isolde's
Liebestod - some 55 of them in 1954 (compared to 120 in the middle of 1999), and
a further 25 orchestral arrangements (compared to 132 orchestral arrangements of
the Liebestod in 1999) - but this did not include matrix numbers or dates, and
included one recording (by Bettina Freeman) which he had only heard of but
never traced, and which he doubted ever existed.

This practice of including rumoured recordings has marred a number of
subsequent discographies. In a listing of recordings in the 1979/80 Bavarian State
Opera season program for Tristan ³, Claus-Dieter Schaumkell included three
recordings which he claimed were "in preparation", but which have never been
published, though bits of one of them have been. He included no record numbers.
In André Tubeuf' s listing in the otherwise excellent issue of L'Avant-Scène Opéra
devoted to Tristan ⁴, record numbers were given in some cases but not in others,
including in cases where no records were issued under the labels given.

In compiling this work, I have sought to be as inclusive and comprehensive
possible. Much as I aimed for the discography to be a complete account of the
recorded repertoire, this is an unachievable goal. Many records come to a collector
by accident, or through the generosity of other collectors. Enterprising producers
of historical recordings also continue to surprise. For example, Preiser and
Symposium are serving the collector of historical recordings well by their continuing
releases of rare or hitherto unpublished material. Furthermore, recent projects to
reissue Wagner recordings in French and Italian, by Romophone and Instituto
Discografico Italiano respectively, will, one hopes, include more Tristan excerpts
in future issues. New orchestral excerpts continue to flow at a steady pace,

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