Ein Heldenleben

Antonio Pappano conducts Rome’s Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in two works from the earlier phase of Richard Strauss’s career: a comparative rarity, the mercurial, virtuosic Burleske for piano and orchestra, with Bertrand Chamayou as soloist, and the epic autobiographical tone poem Ein Heldenleben, one of the composer’s orchestral masterpieces. “Strauss always thought dramaturgically,” says Pappano. “Recording this music in Italy, the link has to be through opera, with all its theatricality, temperament, contrast and colour …You need a certain charisma in the sound, which these players achieve.”

The tone poems of Richard Strauss's early career represent a remarkable extension of the ideas of Liszt and Wagner, and the autobiographical Ein Heldenleben exceeds its predecessors in terms of its demands on the orchestra. Its intricately interwoven sections create a single symphonic movement depicting heroism, love, and ultimately peace.

The two works were both recorded live at London's Royal Festival Hall, but over six years apart – Till Eulenspiegel in June 2001, before the hall's renovation, and Ein Heldenleben in late 2007 – and Signum's sound is refreshingly natural; it's a bit uncharitable to say it captures the performances 'warts and all', yet there's an honesty about engineering that employs a natural dynamic range and avoids upholstering the sound. Till Eulenspiegel is a work that delights gleefully in its brilliant surface, making few pretentions to metaphysical profundity. Ein Heldenleben, at three times the length, might similarly avoid excessive philosophising, yet requires a sure hand to prevent it degenerating into overblown pomp.

Herbert von Karajan's post-war debut with Deutsche Grammophon was this classic 1959 recording of , coupled here with a sizzling account of from 1972/1973. Apart from Karajan himself, one of its stars was violinist Michel Schwalbé, who became the orchestral leader of the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1957. According to critic Deryck Cooke, Karajan's performance has a fire and sweeping breadth which results, "surprisingly, not in bombast but in true nobility".