Strauss Richard Four Last Songs

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and their Chief Conductor Sir Andrew Davis continue their acclaimed survey of the orchestral music of Richard Strauss with two contrasting, characterful and ambitious works.

This final installment in Hyperion's cycle of the complete songs of Richard Strauss contains a miscellany of material, with the expected positive and negative results. The best news comes at the end, with the inclusion of Strauss' orchestral Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) in piano transcriptions by Max Wolff and Ernst Roth (the latter in the really sublimely done Im Abendrot, which, if you sample the final pages, might rightly persuade you to shell out for the whole album).

Richard Strauss is considered to be both the last ‘Classical’ composer and a champion of modernity. His wide-ranging output stands as a monument to one of the most successful and influential composers of the 20th century. His spirited and compact First Horn Concerto was the product of his teenage years, while the Second Horn Concerto came six decades later, echoing the expressively lyrical and dynamic character of its youthful predecessor. Both of these concertos share the chamber orchestra character of the Four Last Songs in its arrangement by Eberhard Kloke. The Andante in C major and Alphorn in E flat major, originally composed with piano accompaniment, are heard here in arrangements for chamber orchestra by Lars Opfermann.

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and their Chief Conductor Sir Andrew Davis continue their acclaimed survey of the orchestral music of Richard Strauss, with this latest volume featuring three world-class soloists – James Ehnes, Daniel Müller-Schott and Christopher Moore – performing two of his finest early works: the Violin Concerto, and the tone poem Don Quixote.

'The dreamer! That double of our existence, that chiaroscuro of the thinking being', wrote Gaston Bachelard in 1961. 'The old is dying, the new cannot be born, and in that chiaroscuro, monsters appear', adds Antonio Gramsci. Sandrine Piau has chosen to use these two quotations as an epigraph to her new recording: 'My family and friends know about this obsession that never leaves me completely. The antagonism between light and darkness. The chiaroscuro, the space in between…'

VA - Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra: 60th Anniversary Box Set / 60 Jahre Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (2009)
MP3 320 kbps | 7 CDs | 06:40:24 min | Covers included | 1,06 Gb
Genre: Classical, Ballet, Orchestral, Vocal / Label: BR-Klassik

Box set celebrating the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks' 60th anniversary. Some of the featured conductors include Eugen Jochum, Rafael Kubelik, Lorin Maazel and Mariss Jansons.

Many of Richard Strauss's compositions had their world premiere in Dresden and the composer dedicated An Alpine Symphony to the Dresden orchestra. It is apt, therefore, that this performance is given by the Staatskapelle Dresden under the direction of Christian Thielemann. The programme includes Four Last Songs, Wolfgang Rihm's Ernster Gesang and the German premiere of the last completed Strauss song: Mallows, in an orchestral version arranged specifically for Dresden by Wolfgang Rihm. The soprano in these performances, Anja Harteros, is enjoying a flourishing operatic career with recent performances at the MET, Covent Garden, La Scala, and Salzburg Festival.

Majestic versions of the Alpine Symphony have been piling up in the CD ranks in almost indecent abundance. This is perhaps the summit of recent achievements for its masterly balance between profound contemplation and decent urgency. Emerging out of the mists of the Dresden Lukaskirche acoustics, Strauss’s succession of mountain themes never stand out in rough profile but swim in the sauce, to paraphrase Sibelius. Luisi knows where he wants his centres of gravity: there’s unique space around the rhapsody with solo strings that unfolds after entering the forest, the climaxes of the summit paean are surely placed, and the Epilogue is graced by superlative horn tone. Graphic touches also outstrip every rival version, among them the shrill birdsong, the bleating oboes on the high pastures and the shriek of delight which follows. The recording helps to avoid sonic overkill with fine perspectives and some helpful reverberation.

BBC Music Magazine