Popular excerpts from Richard Wagner's music dramas appeared over the years in various guises, often in transcriptions to be played on piano or pipe organ, but also in arrangements for mechanical instruments, such as player pianos, music boxes, and other automated devices that were in vogue in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This fascinating album of well-known themes from Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, The Ring of the Nibelung, and other works showcases a few of the antique instruments housed in the Munich City Museum, some of which were exhibited there in 2003. The Steinway-Welte reproduction piano, the wind-up Ariston organette, the Paillard & Cie Mandolin cylinder music box, and the Symphonion disc music box (which played cut-out discs like the one featured on the cover) represent parlor instruments that were modest in size and sound, while the restored fairground carousel organ by Gebrüder Bruder and the concert orchestrion built by Josef Stern are big, bombastic contraptions that needed to be presented in public because of their noisy effects. This group of novelties is only part of the museum's holdings, for there are many other musical items that the curators could have sampled. One may regret that the second half of this CD features so much of the Steinway-Welte when there are so many other curiosities to be heard; yet the limited number of Wagner rolls, cylinders, and discs seems to have dictated what was put on this album. Oehms' recording is clear and focused, so in addition to the intended sounds, expect to hear every click, whir, and squeak of these remarkable instruments.