2. music
  3. 184747-74445

Richard Strauss Recordings

  Strauss is one of a very few Composers who had equal success in both Opera and Symphonic realm.  For the purpose of this discussion I am confining my discussion to non Opera, so essentially: Zarathustra, Till, Don Juan, Heldenleben, Eine Alpinesymphony, Death and Transfiguration, Rosenkavalier and Capriccio extracts, Metamophasen, the early works (Macbeth, Aus Italian) and the one that I really dislike—Symphonica Domestica.

  Sine these are such great Orchestral showcases they have oft been recorded and many as large collections.

  I’ve been listening through the Kempe set with the Dresden Staatkapelle recently (the latest reissue on Warner) from the early seventies and primarily comparing it with two sets -the Reiner/Chicago set, dating from the dawn of the stereo era (Zarathustra recorded-in stereo-in to 1954!) from it’s last Sony reissue, and the Karajan/Berlin Phil set from the early digital era.

  The first observation here, this being an Audiophile Site, is the incredible quality of the first two sets.  At no point, even with the Reiner recordings made before I was born, did I feel that I was listening to anything less than superb reproduction.  It’s amazing how much digital replay has advanced, and how much information is in these old tapes.  By contrast, the worse recording was the Karajan, as DG hadn’t figured out the new technology, and Von K. no doubt had a hand in twiddling the knobs at the mix. It’s over bright and pace any DG recording of the last third of the last century, lacking in bass and presence.

  The Reiner and Kempe are superb collections.  It’s a pity that Reiner never recorded the Alpine Symphony, and occasionally with Kempe one gets the feeling of being hemmed in by the bar lines, but those are relatively rare instances and the DSK of that vintage probably still had players who had been conducted by the Composer, who favored that Orchestra in his later years.

  I have several other later Strauss recordings but probably it will be just Kempe and Reiner for me going forward

mahler123
edcyn
1,876 posts
 

I'm just not that strong a Richard Strauss fan. The only piece that truly pushes all my buttons is The Four Last Songs, which I have on an old Angel/EMI LP with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and George Szell conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. Yeah, Don Juan is fun, and Also Sprach Zarathustra has that great opening statement, but I'd personally just rather put on something by Mahler.

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,095 posts
 

I think frogman put it right.... Too much estheticism exhuding through  all holes ,  and lack of self control ethical perspective... Beauty over truth...  But my description is only a description not a critic at all, Strauss is an incredible genius and a master of the voice and orchestra as frogman said too .... One of the true great composers...  

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,095 posts
 

I must say for me too that this recording is one of the most beautiful songs ever recorded... And it is the same for his operas...

I think Bach is all truth ethic over beauty....This comes from his mathemathical insight...Beauty comes from truth and from ethics ...

I think Bruckner is well balanced between truth and ethic and sensual beauty as Beethoven was in his own way... Compared to Strauss.... But all that are mere description of my feelings not criticism... Strauss is insanely gifted in colors mastery... He remind me of the colors mastery of Monteverdi...In Monteverdi too, beauty and esthetic win always...

And thinking about that, it is very instructive to think about the works of Liszt from pure esthetics and beauty in the beginning toward maturity and over toward absolute truth controlling every inch of colors and beauty in his Christus which orchestral lonng opening describe heaven for me ...A work so underestimated it is a shame... Bruckner take a lot from it, and  this mastery control of beauty under the hand of truth and ethic...

 

I think the OP is right, it is very difficult to look for a composer who exhibit the same supreme mastery in orchestration and all dimensions of voices masteries... On par with Strauss i will put the great Monteverdi...The two use saturated colors over melodic line...

In now feel the urgent need to listen to the Metamorphosen with Reiner.... Thanks OP...

I’m just not that strong a Richard Strauss fan. The only piece that truly pushes all my buttons is The Four Last Songs, which I have on an old Angel/EMI LP with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and George Szell conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. Yeah, Don Juan is fun, and Also Sprach Zarathustra has that great opening statement, but I’d personally just rather put on something by Mahler.

mahler123 OP
3,359 posts
 

I have had a bit of a love hate relationship with his music, being immediately attracted to Don, Till, Don Quixote,and Death and Transfiguration. I was repelled initially by the egoism in Heldenleben but now I’ve surrendered to its sheer genius (listen to Strauss lampooning his critics with the chirping piccolos, and then listen to the song in Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man for the town harpies that gossip about Marian The Librarian). These are Strauss greatest non Operatic Music, gorgeous Melodie’s, unbelievable orchestration, and real narrative power. The end of Don Quixote is as moving as anything in music, and the small vignettes along the way, such as the bleating sheep that the befuddled Don has mistaken for enemy soldiers, are exquisite.

Two works that I have never fully embraced are Alpine Symphony and Metamorphasen. The former has some superb music, such as the storm sequence, alternating with some second rate Strauss. Metamorphasen, written as the rubble of the Third Reich had not finished bouncing, perhaps for me is undone by its adherents, who make all sorts of claims about what great philosophical truth it contains. For me it’s overlong, although it does have some fine and moving passages, and for me a Strauss canvass without the color of a full Orchestra is like a Rembrandt woodcut-undoubtedly created by a Master but ultimately frustrating because we know what these artists can do with a full palette.

 

Zarathustra is a special case.  Inevitably the rest of it after the 2001 opening also seems anticlimactic.  It takes a lowering of expectations on the part of the listener and more than most of RS requires a Conductor to really shape it.  Haitink with the Concertgebouw gets a slight nod here over Reiner and Kempe.

 

The Domestic Symphony is beyond redemption 

rafevw
70 posts
 

As a sometimes listener of classical music, and one with no formal or even informal music training, for me to listen to a classical piece more than once, it has to speak to me in some, usually in a way that I cannot describe precisely. When asked why I might like a new piece of pop music, I’m the guy who says, “It’s cool.”  I was at a record store in the early 80s and a knowledgeable salesman recommended the “Vier letzte Lieder” with Elizabeth Schwarzkopf. I’ll never forget the first time I heard them. I have not listened to any other recordings of this, but Schwarzkopf sounds perfect, so in control, powerful, but not over the top. And who does not yearn for knowledgeable record store salesmen?

More to discover