What is your favorite Strauss The Last Four Songs?

otto, while i like von karajan's lp i'm not too fond of the recording by dg. i find myself listening to jarvi on chandos as it contains a good version of tod und verklarung and drei hymnen as well as metamorphosen (it also has lott). and, ormandy doing death and transfiguration and metamorphosen with the philadelphia on rca is worthwile as well. i'm sure there are others but this is such intense music that i seldom listen to it and have not really explored other performance possibilities.

Newbee,

Truly intense music indeed. There is another recording by Klemperer. That album released by EMI contains Siegfried Idyll (very rare original orchestration version), Mahler Symphony No. 9 and Metamorphosen. As most of Klemperper's interpretations, it is "heavy".

Happy Listening!

Otto

I have opted for E. Schwarzkopf/Szell over the Ackerman. Even though Ackerman's earlier version offers a younger Schwarzkopf, I like the maturity of her voice in the Szell version & the classicism of the latter's conductiong.
For the Metamorphosen, I presently favour a Janowitz /Academy of London/R Stamp version on Virgin (which also has the Four Last Songs) -- but I'm sure I need to research this piece better...

Janowitz and Popp are my two favorites, but Barbara Bonney, with only piano accompaniment, is also delightful.

I've enjoyed Norman with Masur for a long time.

Also Schwarzkopf-Szell.

Another winner is the more recent Isokoski-Janowski recording suggested by Dave.