Also available on Blu-ray

The Vienna Johann Strauss Orchestra can rightly claim to be one of the most authentic ensembles for interpreting the music of the Strauss dynasty. In 1966 — nearly 120 years after Johann Strauss I had founded the Strauss Orchestra, the great demand for high-quality interpretations of light music led a group of musicians in Vienna who belonged to the small ensemble of the Austrian Radio Orchestra to found the Vienna Johann Strauss Orchestra. The aim of new orchestra was to cultivate the music of the Strauss dynasty, together with so-called ‘light’ Viennese music. It was formed of fortytwo musicians, that it to say the ensemble was the same size as that which, according to authentic accounts, was preferred by the members of the Strauss family.

Includes work(s) by Johann Strauss Jr..

Also available on Blu-ray

Gloriously affirming the Salzburg Festival’s long-standing reputation as a supreme musical event, this concert honours one of its founding fathers, Richard Strauss. Renée Fleming, Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra unite for a programme of song, opera and tone poem, genres central to the composer’s extraordinarily fruitful career. Fleming interprets four of his songs with orchestra, including the deeply moving Befreit, and provides a substantial taste of perhaps her finest operatic role, Arabella. New vistas then open as Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic take the spectacular mountain journey mapped by the composer in his titanic Alpine Symphony.

Richard Strauss:
Befreit, Op. 39, No. 4
Winterliebe, Op. 48, No. 5
Traum durch die Dämmerung, Op. 29, No. 1
Gesang der Apollopriesterin, Op. 33, No. 2
Arabella: Mein Elemer!
Eine Alpensinfonie, Op. 64

Renée Fleming, soprano
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Christian Thielemann, conductor

Recorded live at the Salzburg Festival, August 2011

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format; LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish
Running time: 84 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

R E V I E W:

R. STRAUSS An Alpine Symphony. Befreit. Winterliebe. Traum durch die Dämmerung. Gesang der Apollopriesterin. Arabella: act I concluding scene • Christian Thielemann, cond; Renée Fleming (sop); Vienna PO • OPUS ARTE 7101 (Blu-ray: 84:00) Live: Salzburg 8/2011


Renée Fleming, Christian Thielemann, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra giving a Richard Straus concert at Salzburg would seem to be a no-brainer for Richard Strauss fans. Put it on your Blu-ray machine, turn off the lights, and surrender to Strauss’s beloved soprano voice and luscious orchestration. Fleming has stated that his music is ideal for her voice. And so it is. Strauss was seemingly addicted to the soprano voice, but you have to wonder if he ever heard an instrument like Fleming’s singing his music. Her rich, creamy tone blends so perfectly with Strauss’s lush orchestration that you have to forgive her when she sometimes tends to over-interpret these songs. Her lovely tone and wistful mood are perfect for the concluding scene from Arabella. Yes, she owns the part with a voice that is even more innately suited to this music than Kiri Te Kanawa’s. Gesang der Apollopriesterin is overwhelming in the hands of Fleming, Thielemann, and the Vienna Philharmonic. Despite sometimes seemingly getting lost in the sheer beauty of the sound of her voice as it relates to this music (who can blame her?), Befreit also shows why Fleming is a great Straussian. The magnificent Vienna Philharmonic plays an equal role in the songs, as it should.


For some, An Alpine Symphony will never be more than a monstrous exercise in musical megalomania (sometimes I wonder whether those critics are afraid to allow themselves to actually enjoy music, rather than view it as a painful academic exercise). After all, orchestration and melody are in many cases just as important as counterpoint and structure (which is not to say that Strauss could not write structurally sound music, even if he was not a symphonist). Anyway, Thielemann seems content to let the orchestra do its thing with just the right amount of control, and the video director discreetly gives us a helpful view of all the soloists within Strauss’s gigantic orchestra, especially the woodwinds. What a pleasure it is to hear the trumpets playing effortlessly without sounding annoying or inappropriately piercing through the instrumental fabric. And those trombone fanfares are stunning. Thielemann’s tempos are generally slow, but he presses forward in the climactic “At the Summit,” thus assuring that his interpretation does not bog down or sound over-indulgent. On the other hand, he slows too much to the point of micro-managing without enhancing the music’s atmosphere for the “Vision,” “Elegy,” and “Calm Before the Storm.” For Thielemann, the true climax appears to be “Sunset,” where he broadens the tempo and unleashes a torrent of luxurious sound. The organ is too subdued in the “Storm,” but blends nicely with the orchestra elsewhere.


The DTS surround sound is ideal for the Alpine Symphony, and the video direction shows plenty of detail without being choppy. My one quibble would be that you never get a complete view of the important percussion section. There are extreme close-ups of drum sticks (but not the timpanist) and the wind and thunder machines, but not the rest of the players. Subtitles are available in English, French, German, and Spanish. What more can I say? It is hard to imagine a better audio-visual feast for Straussians.


FANFARE: Arthur Lintgen

T he Strauss family was one of music's greatest dynasties. In this glittering disc, we hear such classics as the Radetzky March of Johann Strauss I, and his son, Johann Strauss II's overture to Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron), one of the enduring masterpieces of the Viennese concert repertoire. The irresistibly exciting Unter Donner und Blitz (Thunder and Lightning) offers thunderous delight, whilst Ander schenen blauen Donau (On the Beautiful Blue Danube) is one of the most unforgettable melodies ever written. Strauss the Elder's second son, Josef, was an outstanding composer in his own right, as demonstrated by the frenzy of excitement that is the Jokey-Polka (Jockey-Polka). After positions as Chief Conductor of Prague State Opera and First Permanent Conductor of Leipzig Opera, Johannes Wildner was the General Music Director of the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia (Germany) for ten years from 1997. His years of experience as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra have given his conducting a distinctive stamp.

This opulent production by Oscar-winning film director John Schlesinger, filmed in 1985, marked the 25th anniversary of Sir Georg Solti's spectacular debut at Covent garden, conducting this very opera. It also features Kiri Te Kanawa as the Marschallin, performance of which The Financial Times said, "This deserves to be ranked...among her finest achievements." Anne Howells gives a sensitive performance as the 'Knight of the Rose'; Aage Haugland is the roguish Baron Ochs, and the International Herald Tribune described American soprano Barbara Bonney as "...an enchantingly vulnerable Sophie, as lovely to hear...as she is to behold".

Also available on Blu-ray

2014 marks a year of celebration recognizing the 150th birthday year of the German late-Romantic orchestral, operatic and lied master composer, Richard Strauss (1864-1949). Arabella (premiered 1933, Dresden) was the last of the half dozen Strauss works to feature a libretto by the great Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal. This production, from the most recent Salzburg Easter Festival is, after Capriccio, the second of three Richard Strauss operas C Major is releasing in honor of the composer’s birth, life and work. The star-laden cast includes soprano Renèe Fleming, baritone Thomas Hampson, Albert Dohmen (Covent Garden, Wiener Staatsoper, MET) and Gabriela Benacková (Wiener Staatsoper, Covent Garden). With Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden, “the music of Richard Strauss is in the best of hands.” (ORF) “Thielemann gets the best out of the cast...especially Renée Fleming with her “luxurious” soprano …” FAZ

Richard Strauss
ARABELLA

Graf Waldner - Albert Dohmen
Adelaide - Gabriela Be?a?ková
Arabella - Renée Fleming
Zdenka - Hanna-Elisabeth Müller
Mandryka - Thomas Hampson
Matteo - Daniel Behle

Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden
(chorus master: Wolfram Tetzner)
Staatskapelle Dresden
Christian Thielemann, conductor

Florentine Klepper, stage director
Martina Segna, set designer
Anna Sofie Tuma, costume designer
Bernd Purkrabek, lighting designer
Volker Michl, choreographer

Recorded live at Salzburg Easter Festival, 2014

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS 5.0br> Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: German, English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese
Booklet notes: English, German, French
Running time: 178 mins
No. of DVDs: 1

Richard Strauss’s opera at the Salzburg Festival, staged by Romeo Castellucci at the Felsenreitschule, was nothing short of a sensation! Debuting in the title role, Asmik Grigorian propelled herself to international stardom with her mesmerizing singing and acting abilities. The exceptional soprano recently won the International Opera Award as best singer. To witness Maestro Franz Welser-Most performing together with the Wiener Philharmoniker and an outstanding cast “makes you think you are hearing the piece in its most perfect incarnation yet” (Financial Times). “Asmik Grigorian sweeps all in her wake in the title role of Strauss’s opera. […] Here is a Salome to end all Salomes. […] In total, it is stunning…" (Financial Times) “thrilling” (Spiegel Online) “A breathtakingly dense, musically epoch-making […] Salome, which brought the house down!” (Neue Zurcher Zeitung)

 

In its 100th anniversary edition, the Salzburg Festival celebrates a real triumph with a mind-blowing new production of Elektra, one of the most famous masterpieces of opera history by the two festival founders Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte as vengeful and traumatized Elektra turns the opening of the Festival into a real knockout performance! Her sister Chrysotemis is sung by her compatriot Asmik Grigorian, who made her international breakthrough as acclaimed Salome at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, and whose performance once again draws the audience into spell. Tanja Ariane Baumgartner as Klytämnestra, Derek Welton as Orest and Michael Laurenz as Ägisth complete an ensemble of top-notch singers. The staging by Krzysztof Warlikowski of this work about matricide, obsession, revenge and physical degradation is a deep psychological study of a broken family. Franz Welser-Möst brings his trademark flair to the pit where the brilliantly effervescent and then again heartrendingly gentle playing Wiener Philharmoniker create gloriously exultant Strauss moments. “To have chosen Elektra of all pieces, was audacious – and to have brought it off so well, triumphant” (The Times) “One Highlight of the centenary season.” (The Telegraph)

In its 100th anniversary edition, the Salzburg Festival celebrates a real triumph with a mind-blowing new production of Elektra, one of the most famous masterpieces of opera history by the two festival founders Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte as vengeful and traumatized Elektra turns the opening of the Festival into a real knockout performance! Her sister Chrysotemis is sung by her compatriot Asmik Grigorian, who made her international breakthrough as acclaimed Salome at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, and whose performance once again draws the audience into spell. Tanja Ariane Baumgartner as Klytämnestra, Derek Welton as Orest and Michael Laurenz as Ägisth complete an ensemble of top-notch singers. The staging by Krzysztof Warlikowski of this work about matricide, obsession, revenge and physical degradation is a deep psychological study of a broken family. Franz Welser-Möst brings his trademark flair to the pit where the brilliantly effervescent and then again heartrendingly gentle playing Wiener Philharmoniker create gloriously exultant Strauss moments. “To have chosen Elektra of all pieces, was audacious – and to have brought it off so well, triumphant” (The Times) “One Highlight of the centenary season.” (The Telegraph) Last year, the Salzburg Festival defied whatever conventions existed in the early months of the pandemic when it refused to cancel its centennial season, opting instead for extreme hygiene protocols. The director Krzysztof Warlikowski and the conductor Franz Welser-Möst embraced that rebellious spirit with their production of Richard Strauss's visceral one-act opera "Elektra," which opened the 2020 season and is now available on DVD and Blu-ray. Warlikowski dispenses with the cliche of Elektra as a semi-feral Greek princess driven mad by her desire to kill her mother, Klytämnestra, in revenge for killing her father, Agamemnon; here, she's a poor little rich girl whose party dress osbcures the depths of her family trauma. The soprano Ausrine Stundyte embodies the character's complexity with singing of astonishing delicacy and potency, and she finds worthy foils in Asmik Grigorian's confident Chrysothemis and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner's haunted yet haughty Klytämnestra. Under Welser-Möst, the Vienna Philharmonic plays with a sumptuousness typically reserved for Strauss's lyric works. ()-Oussama Zahr

Following the release of Prokofiev’s “Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution”, Kirill Karabits dedicates his next Audite recording with the Weimar Staatskapelle to the “Weimar” Strauss. Weimar was not only the metropolis of the classical era that acquired world fame thanks to Goethe and Schiller. Weimar was also the domain of great musicians: Franz Liszt served as Kapellmeister in the city and invented the genre of the symphonic poem. Richard Strauss followed in his footsteps when he, as Kapellmeister from 1889 until 1894, presented his own first symphonic poems, “Macbeth” and “Don Juan”, at the helm of the Weimar court orchestra. Kirill Karabits, Generalmusikdirektor of the Deutsches Nationaltheater since 2016, now presents, alongside today’s Weimar Staatskapelle, not only these two major works of his great predecessor, but also “Tod und Verklärung” (Death and Transfiguration), which Strauss had completed in Weimar. The contemporaneous Festmarsch in C major, TrV157 – Strauss’ anniversary gift to “Die Wilde Gung’l”, the Munich orchestra he had conducted in his youth – is a true rarity, rounding off this recording.

Congratulations to Vladimir Jurowski, who won Opus Klassik's 2022 Conductor of the Year award for this recording!

Vladimir Jurowski and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester continue their PENTATONE journey through the heights of German late-Romantic repertoire with a recording of Richard Strauss’s Eine Alpensinfonie. The Alpine Symphony was inspired by the composer’s experiences during a mountain trail, and is an audience favourite thanks to its picturesque, idyllic charm and powerfully evocative score. To Jurowski, the attraction of this piece lies not so much in the picturesque, but rather in Strauss’s Nietzschean embrace of living in the now and the transformative power of being in complete harmony with sublime nature. In that respect, this album shares a kinship not only with Jurowski’s previous recording of Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra (2017), but equally with his acclaimed interpretation of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (2020), in which he also recognizes a composer coming to terms with the mortality of man while celebrating the immortal nature of Life. Seen in this light, Strauss’s Alpine Symphony becomes much more than just an exquisitely scored postcard. The Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin has a vast PENTATONE discography. Together with their chief conductor and artistic director Vladimir Jurowski, they have recorded Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (2020), symphonic works from Mahler and Strauss (2017), violin concertos by Britten and Hindemith together with Arabella Steinbacher (2017), and Schnittke’s Third Symphony (2015).

REVIEW:

Vladimir Jurowski succeeds really well in combining the visual of the score as well as its intellectual content, on the one hand with a musical 4K filming, which brings many details and thus the manifold life in the Alpine region alive in a spectacular sound, and on the other hand with an emphasis, which makes the emotional moods tangible. The transparency, surely inspired by the conductor and then optimally captured in the surround sound, has the effect that one can listen to the work without having the composer's explanation present: one still finds out what Richard Strauss is describing. The atmospheric density and varied musical substance that prevail here are not found in many other recordings.

– Pizzicato

Written when Strauss was only 15, the Romanze is his first attempt at writing for a soloist and orchestra. The influence of Mozart’s piano concertos, which Strauss was studying at the time, is apparent, not least in the writing for solo clarinet and the orchestral bassoon – a scoring favoured by Mozart, and re-visited by Strauss in his final instrumental work the Duett-Concertino from 1947. Like other of his late compositions, this work seems to reject the full-blown expressionism for which we know Strauss best, and reflects a more neo-classical sound. Another early work, the Violin Concerto was first performed in 1882, and demonstrates Strauss’ growing technical skill and developing compositional voice. Despite continued performances in both Germany and England, Strauss ultimately came to distance himself from a piece which he presumably regarded as unrepresentative of his mature style. Many commentators on the works of Strauss have felt that the Burleske was a significant turning point in his development, seemingly pointing the way ahead to the technical dexterity and emotional palette of his later tone poems. Originally written for Strauss’s mentor in Dresden Hans von Bülow, the work was premiered by Eugen d’Albert, in 1890 following von Bülow’s rejection of the work.

REVIEW:

Tasmin Little’s interpretation of the Violin Concerto is wonderfully sympathetic and the accompaniment under Collins is first-class. In the Burleske, the playing of the BBC SO under Collins is similarly impassioned and the pianist Michael McHale offers a splendidly virtuoso performance. The Duett-Concertino, Strauss’s final work in the genre, also receives a lovely performance. Both Collins and the bassoonist Julie Price offer characterful performances in this warm and nostalgic piece from the composer’s old age, with its echoes of the operas Capriccio and Daphne, and the string-playing is attractively crisp and expressive. All four works are superbly recorded.

– Gramophone

Richard Strauss was not yet 25 when he confronted death in musical terms. However, Death and Transfiguration was not created, as often supposed, as a more or less autobiographical report following a severe illness, but as a pictorial attempt at portraying the final moments of human existence in music. In From Italy, the just twenty-year-old Strauss reflects on a trip to Italy in which he experienced at first hand the beauties of nature and the Roman ruins. Both works are now brought together as Part 5 of the Strauss cycle with Sebastian Weigle on an released by OehmsClassics. Conductor Sebastian Weigle conducts his Frankfurter Opern-und Museumsorchester with transparency and aplomb.

In this compilation all recordings of the symphonic poems by Richard Strauss are combined with the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra under the General Music Director Sebastian Weigle. The orchestra has been awarded several times by the “Opernwelt” as Orchestra of the Year. Sebastian Weigle has been General Music Director since 2008/09. ‘...exceptionally vivid and detailed sound, which makes everything in these elaborately scored and contrapuntally dense works fully audible.’ (AllMusic.com on Vol. 6) ‘Weigle’s performances here are not only musically thrilling—both dynamically, and in regard to his color palette, his sense of voicing, and overall pacing—but thoroughly enjoyable to listen to on these transitionary days of early spring.’ (Fanfare on Vol. 5)

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Excerpts from select reviews of previously released volumes include in this set:

Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra & Don Quixote / Weigle

Sebastian Weigle secures a finely prepared, keenly purposeful and (above all) intensely musical account of Also sprach Zarathustra.

– Classical Ear

Strauss: Ein Heldenleben; Macbeth / Weigle

First impressions of this Heldenleben are highly favorable. Ingo de Haas is a generous, full-toned soloist in 'The Hero's Companion', but he's never cloying. Strauss performances don’t come more seamless and authoritative than this.

– MusicWeb International

Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie / Weigle

Weigle’s Alpine Symphony performance is defined by a wonderful lyrical generosity, complete control of the work’s 50-minute span, and orchestral playing in which every note seems to reflect the drama that is being played out. Highly recommended

– Gramophone

The celebrated young Colombian maestro Andres Orozco-Estrada continues his critically acclaimed series of recordings for Pentatone with this release of the evocative tone poems Macbeth and Ein Heldenleben by Richard Strauss, performed here with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. These gripping works, with their intricate scoring and compelling narratives, are orchestral tours de force, demonstrating Strauss's gift for filling a huge orchestral canvas with vivd and exquisite details while maintaining a sense of drama. And they are stunningly brought to life in this recording with Pentatone's state of the art multi-channel surround sound. Strauss's brooding tone poem Macbeth is a psychological portait of the main protagonists in the play, the insecure and vacillating Macbeth and his wife, the ambitious but deranged Lady Macbeth. Strauss's often highly charged score suggests the mounting horror and dread of the ill-fated couple and their domestic unease, the work ending on a sombre ntoe following their deaths and the triumphal march of Macduff. In Strauss's striking and florid masterpiece Ein Heldenleben, there's little doubt who the real hero is but Strauss himself. While he was roundly mocked at the time for his audacity, there's also little doubt that this bold and dramatic tone poem is no mere cornucopia of orchestral effects - it's a life-affirming work which ends not in a triumphal blaze, but in a mood of quiet resignation.