Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Richard Strauss composed a career total of more than two hundred songs, most of them for a high female voice. The master repeatedlyw as inspired by sopranos, and the fact that he married one of these ladies, Pauline de Ahna, is proof of his intimate association with this wonderful art. Maria Bengtsson's fine selection from all his compositional periods demonstrates the versatility of Straussian composition, and in Sarah Tysman she has a piano partner whose subtle interpretations far transcend mere accompaniment. Commenting, illustrating, harmonizing- Strauss indeed assigns very important tasks to the piano. In "Morgen!" it is more the case that the voice accompanies the piano; thunder and storm are experienced in "Schlechtes Wetter"; and in "Standchen" we can even feel the youth's jittery nerves. The writer's shout verging on bitonality at the end of "Fur funfzehn Pfennige" shows what undiscovered possibilities lie in store in traditional harmony; of course, until the end of his long life, Strauss rejected all atonal advances. Maria Bengtsson meets these challenges with the natural magnificence of a virtuoso also schooled on Strauss's theatrical oeuvre. And her teamwork with Sarah Tysman can be experienced in impressive transparency above all in this meticulously produced album.

ORCHESTRAL WORKS

Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

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It’s been worth the three-decade wait for this transfer of Kleiber’s cherished Rosenkavalier

We all know that Carlos Kleiber recordings are like gold dust. Whether or not one believes that the mystique surrounding this maestro is simply because he did so little, there’s no doubting that his Rosenkavalier was miraculous. With Claire Watson (more neurotic than his other recorded Marschallins) heading a marvellous cast, this is simply unmissable.

-- Gramophone [4/2009]

This recording, live from the Vienna State Opera in 1955, was taped just weeks before virtually the same cast (there's only one major difference) entered the studio and recorded it for Decca. The performances are remarkably similar: Karl Böhm, a master of this complex, beautiful score, presents it almost complete (there are, I believe, very small cuts here and there) and has assembled a superb, enthralled, and enthralling cast. The one major change from the studio recording is that whereas Paul Schöffler was the Barak for Decca, here we get Ludwig Weber, whose voice may be somewhat less beautiful than Schöffler's, but is easily as expressive, endearing, and impressive.

Leonie Rysanek is the familiar Empress, seemingly hypnotized and enchanted, her voice settling down after some initial pitch problems mid-range to offer a glorious reading, with gleaming, cutting top notes and true sentiment throughout. She makes us feel for the character and her plight. Her Emperor is the beefy tenor Hans Hopf, who is less crude than usual and has the notes and stamina for the role, particularly in the seemingly endless final scene, which, when presented as complete as is it here, can be quite a challenge.

As the Dyer's Wife, Christel Goltz is not quite in the same class with the others; her singing is secure and good enough but she lacks any subtlety and can't compare with, say, Christa Ludwig in the role. Elisabeth Höngen's Nurse is nasty and biting, and she gets through the role without shouting. Kurt Böhme's Messenger is potent and the rest of the cast--Vienna stalwarts from the '50s--is top notch.

Böhm captures just the correct otherworldliness of the music, and the Vienna Philharmonic, tam tam, gongs and all, plays with great feeling and love. The sound is pure, clear monaural (the studio recording is early stereo but is essentially no better), with even the harps audible; Strauss' exotica is underlined but not so prominent that we can't hear the gorgeously tonal score. The vibrancy of the live experience is thrilling. If you own the Decca, you won't need this, really, but you must own one or the other.

--Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Live - Opening night recording, 1965.

Following on from the success of the scandalous Salome, it was with Elektra in 1909 – his first collaboration with Hugo von Hofmannsthal – that Richard Strauss finally cemented his position as the leading German opera composer of his generation. Even today, the radical expressive violence of Elektra is regarded as paradigmatic of musical Modernism. The immense vocal and orchestral demands it makes remain undiminished, too. The number of singers who have really been able to meet the murderous challenge of singing the title role have been few and far between. In the 1960s and ’70s, Birgit Nilsson was undoubtedly one of them, possessing as she did a powerful voice also capable of much subtlety. She sang Elektra at the Vienna State Opera in 1965 in a production by Wieland Wagner, and the live recording of the opening night is now available from Orfeo.

No less a figure than Karl Böhm was on the conductor’s podium; his close connection to Strauss’s operatic oeuvre is proven not just by his having given the world première of Daphne, which was dedicated to him. Thanks to Nilsson and Böhm, this Elektra at the Vienna State Opera in 1965 was a musical triumph. Not only did they give full rein to the eruptive violence of the sheer acoustic mass that confronts us in Strauss’s setting of this ancient tale of vengeance, but they also did justice to the psychological details that the composer teased out of the text. They were aided in this by the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera, which played brilliantly across all its sections, and by a cast of singers that was homogeneous right down to the smallest roles. Besides Birgit Nilsson, the evening was naturally dominated by the other two main female roles: Leonie Rysanek sang the wistful Chrysothemis – a role in which she became famous – and with her luminous soprano she was an ideal counterpart to Nilsson’s heroine. As their adversary, their inscrutable mother Klytämnestra, the dusky-timbred Regina Resnik gave a superb performance. For the brief role of her adulterous lover Aegisth, the State Opera had the luxury of engaging the legendary heldentenor Wolfgang Windgassen. Eberhard Waechter sang the part of Orest, and with his unmistakeable baritone he offered every possible nuance of this important character, driven by fate. - Orfeo

Captured live in a gripping concert event dated 30 August 1964, at a point in time many consider the prime of his career or something very close to it, Herbert von Karajan here offers a dazzlingly powerful display of his mastery in music of Richard Strauss, specifically two of the composer’s great tone poems, Don Quixote, op. 35 and Also sprach Zarathustra, op. 30. He is ably aided by his soloists: Rudolf Streng, violist, member of the Vienna Philharmonic, founding member of the reformed Barylli Quartett active during the decade of the 1950s, and later to be heard in the Vienna Philharmonic String Quartet, and French cellist Pierre Fournier, one of the greatest at his instrument in the 20th c., known as the “aristocrat of cellists” in his lifetime for his lyricism and refinement. The Vienna Philharmonic, by this time fully rejuvenated from its wartime decline, is in superb shape. In addition, von Karajan’s Vienna recordings are treasured productions in a voluminous discography otherwise dominated by the Philharmonia and Berlin recordings.

Classical Music

Classical Music

This is not an historical recording. Yet mysteriously the music is performed in an interpretation which is historically authentic down to the last detail. The key to this mystery is: The original performer was present at the recent recording session, but not physically: The music is heard on a modern Steinway. Never has music stored in the Welte-Mignon system sounded so "right" or so good. Thanks to TACET's much-praised recording technique, and because the Welte-Mignon memory system and sound production mechanism have now been newly adjusted for the first time by the leading expert in the field - and are thus able to meet TACET's requirements. (Welte-Mignon was invented in 1904.) the Welte-Mignon mystery can now speak to US without distortion.

Classical Music