Rienzi reconstruct Wagner's "original" "Rienzi", but "Rienzi" on the other hand was clearly never finished by the composer. It was constantly being altered during the 1840s (and, it seems, possibly throughout Wagner's lifetime), so it is not feasible to fully determine Wagner's exact or final intentions based on existing evidence. Complete recordings (and performances) of Rienzi are rare, although the overture is regularly found on radio broadcasts and compilation CDs. Significant cuts to the score are common in recordings. Rienzi was released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2010. The production was directed by Philipp Stölzl, and performed by the Deutsche Oper
Overture in D minor (Handel, arr. Elgar) first performance. Elgar's friend W. H. Reed wrote of Elgar's enthusiasm for Handel: '...he would speak of Handel with tears in his eyes... would rub his hands gleefully and look up to heaven at the thought of Handel's genius'. Elgar wrote to John E. West, music editor at Novello & Co., that he had known the overture since he was a little boy and always wanted it to be heard in a large form. Elgar's arrangement followed two orchestrations of works by another composer he admired: he transcribed J. S. Bach's "Fugue in C minor" in 1921 and the "Fantasia