Franz Lehar

Franz Lehar - Fata Morgana: Suites, Dances, Intermezzi
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin / Michail Jurowski
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 347 MB | Full Artwork: 89 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: CPO # 999 761-2 | Country/Year: Germany 2001
Genre: Classical | Style: Late Romantic, Early 20th Century, Operetta

"This delightful disc of Viennese fluff contains some marvelous tunes, plenty of enticing waltz music. The comfortable, slightly soft edged recording suits the music perfectly." ~classicstoday.com

Franz Lehár was known as “the last waltz king”, so it’s not surprising that his works in the medium bear similarities to those of the Strausses, qualities most readily heard in the suave, luxuriously appointed Wild Roses (or “Valse Boston”). However, Lehár also was a strongly original voice whose harmonic and textural experiments resulted in the striking Debussyian whole-tone scales toward the end of Altwiener Liebeswalzer (“Old Vienna Love Waltz”), or the Wagnerian snarling horns at the start of the Grützner Waltz.

Franz Lehar - Fata Morgana: Suites, Dances, Intermezzi
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin / Michail Jurowski
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 248 MB | Full Artwork: 67 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Geffen # 060251714264 | Country/Year: Germany 2003
Genre: Classical | Style: Late Romantic, Early 20th Century, Operetta, Waltz

"…Lehár also was a strongly original voice whose harmonic and textural experiments resulted in the striking Debussyian whole-tone scales toward the end of Altwiener Liebeswalzer ("Old Vienna Love Waltz"), or the Wagnerian snarling horns at the start of the Grützner Waltz. (…) All pieces receive expert and enthusiastic performances by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Michail Jurowski, and CPO's warm, vibrant, and fully-present sound enhances a thoroughly enjoyable program." ~classicstoday.com

A brilliant and radiant performance of Lehar's valedictory composition, his only operetta written for the august Vienna State Opera, which premiered the piece in 1934. Edith Moser and Nicolai Gedda head up a good cast in this work, which is more serious and profound than most of Lehar's music. The music is as attractive as in any Lehar work, but at times more self-consciously dramatic than in any piece except The Land of Smiles, despite the relatively straightforward subject, about the unhappy romance between the married title character and the officer she has run away with.

Musical institutions have their funny ideas, and the quirk of the Prague Conservatoire in the 1880s was that if you were an instrumentalist you couldn't be a composer, too (evidently no one had told them about Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin et al). At his father's insistence Léhar was enrolled as a violinist, but his real interest lay in composition. He took a few secret lessons from Fibich and had the opportunity to play his D minor sonata to Dvorak, who urged him to give up the violin and switch to the composition classes. But Léhar senior was adamant and Lèhar is to be considered as practically a self-taught composer.