Israel’s public broadcaster has apologised for playing the music of anti-Semitic composer Richard Wagner, calling it an “error.”

Classical radio station Kol HaMusica on Friday broadcast Wagner’s Twilight of the gods" (Gotterdammerung) despite the country's boycott, prompting a number of complaints from listeners.

"In 1849, Richard Wagner began to formulate his revolutionary ideas about opera as a result of anarchist political activity, and gave rise to a new artistic form merging poetry and drama… we will listen to the final act of Twilight of Gods," Avishai Pelchi, the program's presenter, said by way of introduction.

Wagner, whose grandiose and nationalistic 19th-century literary and musical work is infused with anti-Semitism, misogyny and proto-Nazi ideas of racial purity, was Adolf Hitler’s favourite composer.

While there is no law in Israel banning the German composer’s works from being played, orchestras and venues refrain from doing so because of the public outcry and disturbances accompanying past attempts.