The music of "Don Juan", which Richard Strauss rightly called a "tone poen", is of a double nature: it can just as well be heard as an effervescent and enraptured tour de force of a creative temperament which has found itself or as the depiction of various episodes. In "Macbeth" it is not the Shakespeare drama which Richard Strauss reproduces here, but rather its essence: a psychogram of the two protagonists in musical terms, a psychic profile of the Scottish nobleman turned criminal usurper and his spouse who ensnares him and spurs him on. Despite of the manyfold commentaries and philosophical interpretations of "Also sprach Zarathustra" (Thus spake Zarathustra), however, this much is certain that Strauss did not try to set a philosophical system to music. Nevertheless, there is also no doubt that he undertook the task - inspired by intensive study of Nietzsche - of singing the praises of a "superhuman" being in the sense of a spiritual creature conscious of itself and freed of all earthly traces.

Those fortunate enough to attend Glyndebourne know how well Felicity Lott sings operatic Strauss, so it is particularly pleasing that wider and larger audiences enjoy her outstanding performance of the Four Last songs and can now have it on record. . . . [T]he songs are sung in the order of the 1950 first performance, with ''Beim schlafengehen'' first . . . . Emotionally this seems to me an improvement on the published sequence. Lott's radiant singing reminds me of Sena Jurinac in this music. It has a comparable glistening purity and brightness of tone. Her diction is immaculate and the sheer rapture of her phrasing—in a line like ''Sommer lachelt erstaunt'' and especially her profoundly moving delivery of ''So tief im Abendrot'' in the final song—is glorious to hear. The orchestral playing is luminous and rich in detail. -- Gramophone

Classical Music

STRAUSS II, J.: Edition - Vol. 34

The Estonian National Male Choir RAM was founded by the founder of Estonian choral music Gustav Ernesaks in 1944. Originally a male choir specializing in a cappella repertoire, it has grown into a world-renown professional performer of oratorial works. RAM has given more than 6000 concerts all over Estonia, in the former USSR, in Europe as well as in Israel, Canada and the USA. The Orchestra of the Estonian Defense Forces is a state ceremonial orchestra founded on February 1st, 1993, re-established with the Estonian Defense Forces after the country had regained it's independence.

Considering that it was for long the least-played and most poorly regarded of the tone-poems, Eine Alpensinfonie is now well represented on record and to regard it as a masterpiece is no longer to brand oneself as an eccentric. I was, and still am, very impressed by Haitink's recording on Philips which I described last year as the finest interpretation I had heard. I stand by that opinion, but Järvi put me to the test. Both conductors reach beyond the illustrative features of the work to its pantheism and its origins as a work about the 'Antichrist', whereas Solti (Decca) seems concerned only with the pictorial elements.

Although there is only about ten seconds' difference between their timings, Järvi is more expansive than Haitink in the last sections of the symphony, from the calm before the storm to the end. The crux of Haitink's interpretation is the mysticism he imparts to the Vision episode. On the whole, the Philips is a clearer, brighter recording—in this respect compare the Concertgebouw oboe and cor anglais in "Elegie" with the SNO's. And I suppose that taken as a whole, the Dutch orchestra is superior, but not by much. There is beautiful SNO string-playing in the "Entry into the Wood" and atmospheric and evocative playing of the "Alm" and "Summit" sections, with the brass in the latter really magnificent.

The addition of the four songs, and in such enchanting performances, gives the Chandos disc an advantage over its rivals. Felicity Lott's fresh and lustrous singing of Morgen! is one more manifestation of the miracle of this song, which seems to draw something individual from all its finest performers. That ability to convey true Straussian rapture which is the hallmark of Lott's singing is particularly evident in Freundliche Vision, and she is delightful in the lullaby Meinem Kinde and in the blithe Das Bächlein, which Strauss dedicated to Goebbeis with the best of misguided motives back in 1933.

-- Gramophone [12/1987]

STRAUSS II, J.: Edition - Vol. 12

Carole Farley Sings Richard Strauss: Capriccio and Daphne Cl

Der Rosenkavalier, the most successful opera of Strauss and von Hofmannsthal's partnership, is a story of love, lust and human frailty. The story is not complicated but it soars and dips on Strauss' music with Hofmannsthal's expressive libretto. With Barker in the role of the Marschallin, who can fail to be moved by her poignant portrayal of facing the final loss of youth and her young lover? Count Octavian, (Carby), is a young man who has his life to enjoy with no thought of anything but pleasure and the Marschallin's company - until he meets the beautiful and innocent Sophie von Faninal (Pearson). The boorish Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau is superbly exposed by Hemm, his Viennese accent lending authenticity. Led by conductor Litton and staged by Oberle.

OVERTURES, POLKAS, VALSES

Der Rosenkavalier, the most successful opera of Strauss and von Hofmannsthal's partnership, is a story of love, lust and human frailty. The story is not complicated but it soars and dips on Strauss' music with Hofmannsthal's expressive libretto. With Barker in the role of the Marschallin, who can fail to be moved by her poignant portrayal of facing the final loss of youth and her young lover? Count Octavian, (Carby), is a young man who has his life to enjoy with no thought of anything but pleasure and the Marschallin's company - until he meets the beautiful and innocent Sophie von Faninal (Pearson). The boorish Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau is superbly exposed by Hemm, his Viennese accent lending authenticity. Led by conductor Litton and staged by Oberle.

R. Strauss: Sonatina No. 2, TrV 291 "Fröhliche Werkstatt"

With “Aus Italien”, sketched while on a tour of Italy suggested to the young composer by Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss (1864-1949) began his decisive journey into the musical form that would come to define his orchestral output, the tone poem. In this work, Strauss‘ orchestral mastery is already plainly evident. Honoring the composer’s sesquicentennial, François-Xavier Roth couples this work on his third volume of the complete Strauss tone poems with the monumental “Also sprach Zarathustra” – a work inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophic prose poem.

This is the fourth Phaedra album featuring the young Dutch tenor Peter Gijsbertsen. The release includes well-known and less well-known songs, an attractive anthology of Richard Strauss’s fascinating lied repertoire. His accompanist is Jozef de Beenhouwer, one of Flanders’ most prominent pianists, who was for several years one of the accompanists at the Queen Elisabeth Competition. Together with mezzo soprano Lucienne van Deyck he teaches the lied course at the Royal Flemish Conservatory of Music of Antwerp (at present part of the Antwerp School of Arts). In 1993 he was awarded the prestigious Robert Schumann Prize of the City of Zwickau.

DOLCE FAR NIENTE