Strauss Digital

This CD brings together works by three outstanding composers from the 19th and 20th centuries, each of whom interprets the connection between violin and piano in a unique compositional way.

Brahms was 48 years old and at the height of his powers when he completed his Piano Concerto No. 2. The Olympian B flat Concerto is, famously, not only one of the most technically challenging of all piano concertos to play but also one of the longest and a supreme test of the soloist’s technique and stamina. Not far behind it in terms of the challenges it presents the soloist with, is the early Burleske for piano and orchestra by Richard Strauss.

Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra present this acclaimed live 2016 recording of orchestral suites based on two of the most significant operas in history. Der Rosenkavalier found its place in the concert hall from the beginning, first with two waltz sequences and later with the famous 1944 suite, but Elektra remained purely on the opera stage until now, thanks to Honeck's own symphonic adaptation in collaboration with Czech composer Tomás Ille.

This album offers Leonard Bernstein in some quite rare (at least for him, on disc) operatic repertoire. Given his flair for the dramatic, it’s not surprising that Bernstein would take so winningly to Strauss’s Salome. The Dance of the Seven Veils is full of color, sparkle, and cloying sensuality […] Montserrat Caballé sings with solid, beautifully produced tone and communicates a sense of unbearable longing […] She’s also very good in the lighter, sweeter Strauss songs that follow.

Born and raised in Vienna, Josef Krips trained as a choirboy and studied with Felix Weingartner, who then hired him as a repetiteur at the Volksoper. He his debut there in 1921, before graduating to the Vienna State Opera in 1933. In the aftermath of the Second World War, it was Krips above all who reformed and re-trained the State Opera as a world-class ensemble, and in the most difficult conditions. His pragmatism and understated authority made him a model recording conductor, and Decca hired him to work with orchestras in several of their centres of activity.

Born and raised in Vienna, Josef Krips trained as a choirboy and studied with Felix Weingartner, who then hired him as a repetiteur at the Volksoper. He his debut there in 1921, before graduating to the Vienna State Opera in 1933. In the aftermath of the Second World War, it was Krips above all who reformed and re-trained the State Opera as a world-class ensemble, and in the most difficult conditions. His pragmatism and understated authority made him a model recording conductor, and Decca hired him to work with orchestras in several of their centres of activity.

Franz Schmidt was a cellist of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra himself and he allowed the orchestra to premiere his symphony in 1913, which since then belongs in the orchestra’s main repertoire.

The release date of our stunning boxset gathering all the studio recordings of Wilhelm Furtwängler is approaching (September 24th)!

While starting his career adhering to Brahms’ “absolute” or “formalist” compositional approach, Richard Strauss rapidly turned into a staunch supporter of Wagner’s Zukunftsmusik, writing a series of iconoclast symphonic poems full of metaphysical allusions. This album features both sides of Strauss’s musical persona with the Burleske in D minor as well as Ein Heldenleben. While the former is a playful, miniature quasi concerto for piano and orchestra, the latter epitomises Strauss’s symphonic style: majestic, virtuosically orchestrated, full of grand ideas, but never without irony. In that respect, Ein Heldenleben has more in common with Burleske than one would expect.