Richard Strauss
234 products
Strauss, R.: Heldenleben (Ein) / Metamorphosen
SYMPHONIA DOMESTICA SACD
Strauss: Enoch Arden / Emanuel Ax, Patrick Stewart
-- Stephen Eddins, AllMusic.com
Strauss: Four Last Songs; Die Frau ohne Schatten, Also Sprach Zarathustra
Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier
Strauss: Lieder
Strauss: Aschenbrodel / Theis, Vienna Radio Symphony
It is really not at all surprising that a composer of dance music might eventually get around to writing a full-length dance composition. But did you know this: that the music for the full-length ballet Aschenbrödel (Cinderella) amounts to the swan song of Johann Strauss? Unfortunately, he did not live long enough to complete the work. Before his death he had orchestrated the first act and half of the third act. The versed ballet composer Josef Bayer was assigned the task of completing the work, and he used the extensive sketches to produce a performable version. Over the years a lot of new source material has surfaced. On the basis of these sources the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra of Vienna has made a new recording of this work so very rich in melodies. The result is also a sort of rediscovery of Aschenbrödel. Our conductor is the Strauss specialist Ernst Theis.
Strauss: Don Juan, Ein Heldenleben / Jarvi, NHK Symphony
Celebrating its 90th season, NHK SO has one of the longest histories among Japanese orchestras, with a rich and long tradition of performing the music of Richard Strauss under such illustrious conductors as Herbert von Karajan, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Othmar Suitner, Lovro von Matacic, Horst Stein, Charles Dutoit, and Vladimir Ashkenazy among others.
These works were recorded live in Suntory Hall, Tokyo, one of the world's most renowned concert halls, with optimum DSD technology.
R. Strauss: Tone Poems, Vol. 4
Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra - Four Symphonic Interludes
Strauss: Die Fledermaus
Bruckner: Symphonie No. 2 / Pinnock, Royal Academy Of Music Soloists Ensemble
BRUCKNER Symphony No. 2 (arr. Payne). J. STRAUSS II Wein, Weib und Gesang (arr. Berg) • Trevor Pinnock, cond; Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ens • LINN 442 (SACD: 65: 39)
A Bruckner symphony arranged for chamber orchestra? That really shouldn’t work—but it does, and it’s a spectacular success. Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, principal of the Royal Academy of Music, is the brains behind the project, and top honors go to him for his astute choice of symphony and even more astute choice of arranger, the composer Anthony Payne. Add to that the arrangement itself, which is a triumph of clarity and timbral focus, an interpretation from Trevor Pinnock, who proves to be an insightful Brucknerian (who knew?), orchestral playing from students who need fear no comparisons with the finest professionals, and exceptional SACD audio, and the result is an unqualified success on every count.
The release is the second in a series called Reigniting Schoenberg’s Vision . The idea is to recreate—or even reinvent—Schoenberg’s famous Society for Private Musical Performances, performing some of the chamber arrangements of symphonic works made for those events, and even, as in this case, correcting Schoenberg’s omissions by adding to the repertoire. Bruckner’s Second “Symphonie” (as it’s referred to throughout the accompanying literature, a curious affectation) is a daring but smart choice. While it is not particularly small of stature, its identity, character, and charm emanate more from its quieter passages than from its climaxes. Payne follows the spirit more than the letter of the Schoenberg/Berg/Stein arrangements, using a 20-piece ensemble, larger than in any of the Vienna reworkings, but substituting the full orchestra in similar ways, particularly in the use of piano and harmonium to provide essential, although usually invisible, support.
Some of the climaxes feel underpowered, but even here the pros of the arrangement outweigh the cons. We hear the stratospheric violin lines, the chugging bass figures, and the brass fanfares with a rare clarity. But it is in the quieter passages that this version really comes into its own. At the start, for example, the theme is given to the cellos. Here, we hear it as a cello solo, elegantly phrased and all the more beautiful for the sense of intimacy a single player can bring. In later passages, the bassoon writing is a particular revelation, and just as beautifully played. The opening of the Andante second movement, pared down to string sextet, is transporting in a way that only the very finest recordings of the full symphony manage. Some of the scherzo sounds a little hollow, but Pinnock and his small brass section ensure the momentum is maintained through finely calibrated accentuation. And in the finale, an appropriate gravitas is achieved, even in the absence of weight.
Trevor Pinnock brings many of the preoccupations of the period instrument movement to bear on the work, yet it never sounds dry. Details of phrasing and accentuation are addressed in every bar, and the smaller ensemble allows him to shape and color accompanying textures with as much care as the main themes. His tempos are propulsive, but never rigid, nor excessively fast. He seems to be in a quandary over the caesuras. The tutti cut-offs don’t need the time to decay, but the severity of the mood changes often require a pause for reflection, which he always gives.
The instrumentalists perform to an exceptionally high standard throughout. The playing of the string sextet is particularly impressive, highly expressive but finely controlled and balanced. So too the woodwind soloists, blending their tone in ensemble but taking full advantage of the increased exposure in solos to play with character and color. To all the other accolades for Jonathan Freeman-Attwood we must also add recording producer, another field in which he excels. The recording was made at St. George’s Bristol, and the sound is warm, but never excessively resonant. The clarity that Payne achieves in his arrangement is amplified at every step by the quality of the recorded sound.
If I’ve one grumble, it’s with the coupling, Alban Berg’s arrangement of Wine, Women, and Song . It follows hard on the heels of the Bruckner without any gap at all (not even time to jump up and switch it off) and it adds little. In comparison to Payne’s detailed and clear textures in the Bruckner, Berg’s arrangement feels bloated and unfocused. Berg had a different acoustic in mind of course, and a different setting in every sense. Presumably this arrangement is included to highlight the link with the Society for Private Musical Performances, but it’s unnecessary. Whatever inspiration Freeman-Attwood, Payne, and the RAM musicians have drawn from Schoenberg is of only historical interest as far as this recording is concerned: The project needs no further justification than the exceptional quality of the results.
FANFARE: Gavin Dixon
Strauss: Salome [Opera] (Sung in English)
Strauss: Symphonic Poems Vol 2 / Neeme Järvi
All tracks have been digitally mastered using 24-bit technology.
R. Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos / Falletta, Buffalo Philharmonic
I sure hope the folks in Buffalo know what a prize they have in JoAnn Falletta. Her Naxos discography has few peers in terms of imaginative programming and quality of results. The city couldn’t ask for a more positive or alluring cultural calling card, and the present release offers a case in point. There have been many fine recordings of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, but this one stands with the best: for clarity, elegance, distinguished solo work (superb oboe, William Preucil’s solo violin), you name it. Although scored for a chamber orchestra, it’s amazing how congested and fussy so many performances sound. Not here. Just listen to the opening processional of “The Dinner,” with its bold horns and transparent textures. Great stuff.
However, the real item of interest is the “Symphony-Suite” arranged by D. Wilson Ochoa from Ariadne auf Naxos, the original companion work to Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Arranging suites from Strauss’ operas is a trend that can only be encouraged. Strauss did it himself, of course, but mostly without much enthusiasm or imagination. So here’s a case where the intervention of more caring hands is clearly called for.
This suite, forty minutes in all, contains three chunks from the prologue and four from the opera itself. It is gorgeous. Even those who know the opera well may be surprised at how much lovely material slips by without notice in stage performances, such as the “Intermezzo” music on the second to last track here (sound clip). You do get some of the more famous bits (“Es gibt ein Reich,” for example, and the closing scene), but it really is astonishing how much care Strauss lavished on sections that flit by as mere accompaniment–never mind the thematic interest that they contain. Here, thanks to Falletta and the folks in Buffalo, in this luminously played and recorded performance, we can savor them afresh. So what are you waiting for? Go for it.
- ClassicsToday
Strauss: Tod und Verklarung, Don Juan / Ticciati, Deutsches Symphony Orchestra Berlin
David Zinman Conducts Strauss / Zinman, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich
David Zinman, one of today’s most versatile and enterprising conductors, renowned for his interpretations of Beethoven and the music of his American compatriots, has recorded the major works of Richard Strauss with his venerable Swiss orchestra. These excellent performances are reissued here in a single box. ClassicsToday: “There’s much to savor over the course of these seven discs … Zinman’s clear-headed, intelligent interpretations are well worth getting to know.” MusicWeb International: “Zinman has the measure of the scope and scale” of Strauss’s music. “Throughout the project there is no question that the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra play particularly well, while the Arte Nova engineers have produced an atmospheric acoustic and a suitably opulent sound quality … Undoubtedly a major collection.”
REVIEW:
As a Strauss conductor, David Zinman's interests lie more with making sense of the composer's complex linear strands than reveling in his dazzling sonorities and dynamic extremes. In other words, Zinman's a line guy, while Straussians like Kempe and Karajan are chord guys (Strauss is a chord guy disguised as a line guy). There's much to savor over the course of these seven discs.
Zinman's Alpine Symphony mirrors the rounded elegance of Karajan's early digital DG recording, but with more accomplished first-desk playing and better-balanced sonics. He also surpasses the venerable Böhm traversal of the garish Festival Prelude (perhaps the worst orchestral composition by a major composer). Zinman leads a disciplined Sinfonia Domestica that proves more genial and less regimented than Szell/Cleveland, even if we've long been spoiled by Neeme Järvi's stunning brass section. Although Zinman's Metamorphosen doesn't match Karajan's uniform tonal beauty or Kempe's surging climaxes, he takes uncommon care to place the solo and ensemble lines in proper perspective.
All of the works with soloists are played well, especially Simon Fuchs' supple, rich-toned traversal of the Oboe Concerto and Roland Pöntinen's incisive, frighteningly assured left-hand work in the Parergon. While Kempe/Dresden reigns as the Strauss collection of reference, Zinman's clear-headed, intelligent interpretations are well worth getting to know.
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com (reviewing a previous release of this music on Arte Nova)
Strauss, R.: Piano Trios Nos. 1 and 2 / Piano Quartet in C M
Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier / Ticciati, Erraught, Royal, Woldt [blu-ray]
Also available on standard DVD
Strauss's musically ravishing comic masterpiece is given a visual updating in director Richard Jones's stylish and 'gently subversive' Glyndebourne staging, one which offers 'a dreamlike distortion not just of Vienna's 18th-century past, but also of everything we know about reality' (Financial Times). Created to mark the 150th centenary of the composer's birth, the production is packed with energy and wit, its impeccable stagecraft by no means detracting from the first-class singing which underpins, among others, Tara Erraught's 'touching' (Guardian) performance as Octavian, Kate Royal's 'most graceful of Marschallins' and Lars Woldt's 'pitch-perfect' Baron Ochs (Sunday Telegraph). Conductor Robin Ticciati brings clarity and detail to the score, infusing the music with spirit and humanity.
R E V I E W:
"Lars Woldt’s Baron Ochs is rich in tone and dialect, a deliciously crude idiot, yet surprising in his muted final line and some sarcastic inflections opposite Octavian. Comic interest never flags, thanks to Jones’s deft blocking and inventive gags. Conductor Robin Ticciati, chief at Glyndebourne, keeps the London Philharmonic at a keen pitch, spreading glitter over all. It’s the standard menu in major companies today — visual provocation, musical reassurance."
-- David J. Baker, Opera News [11/2015]
Richard Strauss
DER ROSENKAVALIER
(Blu-ray Disc Version)
Octavian - Tara Erraught
The Marschallin - Kate Royal
Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau - Lars Woldt
Sophie - Teodora Gheorghiu
Herr von Faninal - Michael Kraus
Marianne Leitmetzerin - Miranda Keys
Valzacchi - Christopher Gillett
Annina - Helene Schneiderman
Italian Tenor - Andrej Dunaev
Notary - Gwynne Howell
Innkeeper - Robert Wörle
Police Inspector - Scott Conner
Glyndebourne Chorus
(chorus master: Jeremy Bines)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Robin Ticciati, conductor
Richard Jones, stage director
Paul Steinberg, set designer
Nicky Gillibrand, costume designer
Mimi Jordan Sherin, lighting designer
Recorded live at Glyndebourne Opera House, May 2014
Bonus:
- Robin Ticciati, Taking the Baton
- The Trio
- Sights and smells of a production
- Cast gallery
Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Japanese, Korean
Running time: 191 mins (opera) + 22 mins (bonus)
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 50)
Romantic Works For Horn / Xiaoming Han
Strauss: Oboe Concerto, Sonata & Sonatina No. 2 / Nelsons, Royal Concertgebouw
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REVIEW:
Late Strauss has a sound very different from the sumptuous, huge-orchestra one of earlier Strauss, and the 1945 Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra, one of the composer’s final works, shows this quite clearly. The live recording of the concerto for BIS by Alexei Ogrintchouk is a very fine, well-played one, and the conducting by Andris Nelsons is sensitive and nicely paced.
Ogrintchouk is both oboist and conductor in the other works on the SACD, which are studio recordings. The short, charming, lively and quite self-assured Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments is from the opposite, earliest part of Strauss’ career, dating to 1881.
The final work on this disc is much more substantial — longer than the other two put together. The label Sonatina therefore seems something of a misnomer. It features very skillful wind writing — a Strauss characteristic that does not always get adequate attention — and an overall warm and mellow sound somewhat reminiscent of that of Brahms. Strauss was something of a natural in wind writing, as the excellent playing on this recording makes abundantly clear.
– Infodad.com
Strauss: Salome / Laila Andersson-Palme, Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra, Klobucar [2 CDs]
Richard Strauss’ Salome, adapted from the play by Oscar Wilde, first premiered on December 9th, 1905. The opera shocked audiences due to its themes which blend the violent and erotic within a Christian biblical setting. It centers around the death of John the Baptist and is famous for its ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’. Laila Andersson-Palme was born in 1941 and moved to Stockholm in 1960. She was immediately accepted in the solo class at the Royal College of Music and began to perform in small roles at the Opera. After a student concert in 1963 where she sang Violetta’s aria in La Traviata at the Royal Opera House, she was directly engaged on a scholarship. Eventually her voice developed in a dramatic direction. Following a hugely successful career often singing Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner, in various roles, in 1985 she was appointed Court singer in 1985 and was elected in 1997as member no. 913 of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.
Strauss: Piano Trios Nos. 1 & 2
Strauss: Arabella / Magee, Kuhmeier, Bankl, Welser-most
Arabella is the last collaboration between Richard Strauss and his librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and charts the twists and turns of Arabella and her sister, Zdenka, in finding true love. Hofmannsthal’s untimely death meant he never finalised the libretto, leaving many ambiguities in the story that have to be resolved by the Director and singers of each production. Director, Sven-Eric Bechtolf, has created a superbly convincing version of Arabella, starring Emily Magee as the beautiful Arabella and Tomasz Konieczny as the fateful right man, Mandryka. With the Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera, under the direction of Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Möst, this is a truly magnificent production.
Richard Strauss
ARABELLA
Arabella – Emily Magee
Zdenka – Genia Kühmeier
Mandryka – Tomasz Konieczny
Matteo – Michael Schade
Count Waldner – Wolfgang Bankl
Adelaide – Zoryana Kushpler
Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra
(chorus master: Martin Schebesta)
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor
Sven-Eric Bechtolf, stage director
Rolf Glittenberg, set designer
Marianne Glittenberg, costume designer
Recorded live at the Vienna State Opera House on 6 and 9 May 2012
Bonus:
- Cast Gallery
Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: LPCM Stereo / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Korean, Japanese
Running time: 152 mins
No. of DVDs: 1 (DVD 9)
R E V I E W:
R. STRAUSS Arabella • Franz Welser-Möst, cond; Emily Magee (Arabella); Genia Kühmeier (Zdenka); Tomasz Konieczny (Mandryka); Michael Schade (Matteo); Wolfgang Bankl (Count Waldner); Zoryana Kushpler (Adelaide); Daniela Fally (Fiakermilli); Vienna State Opera O & Ch • ELECTRIC PICTURE EPC04BD (Blu-ray: 152:00) Live: Vienna 2012
Arabella is one of Richard Strauss’s more popular works, his last in collaboration with master librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who died before final editing could be completed. Although no literary gem, the story is a quite enjoyable little romantic comedy of the type that has made the movie industry millions of dollars in the past three-quarters century. Girl meets boy, girl and boy fall in love, complications arise that put girl and boy at odds, complications are cleverly resolved, girl and boy presumably live happily ever after. Arabella is our girl, of course, a lyric soprano debutante, and Strauss provides her with much lovely music, particularly in act III, in one of the composer’s best late-period opera scores. Many fine Straussian sopranos have coveted the role of Arabella, and several have actually recorded it, making the competition, even on video, quite fierce.
The production seen here is from the Vienna State Opera filmed in high definition Blu-ray in June of last year. Stage Director Sven-Eric Bechtole has updated the original picturesque 1860s era Viennese settings to that of Strauss’s own era in the early 20th century with little or no loss of romantic effect. Sets and costumes are quite handsomely appointed and quite traditional, as Vienna audiences seem to prefer, although the hotel drawing room furniture in act I looks suspiciously like generic hotel furniture. The presence of the father’s bed in the middle of the drawing room is one of only a very few directorial missteps, no classy hotel of the period would have placed it there and no aristocrat, as the father is, would tolerate it. It allows for some additional stage business, but detracts from the image of the family as poor, but of the highest breeding. Act II is the Strauss/Hofmannsthal take on a party scene in the style of Die Fledermaus, La bohème, or La Rondine. It does not seem to come off quite as well as those earlier models, the gaity seems a bit forced as troubling plot complications arise. Strauss even tacks on a coloratura showpiece by party mascot Fiakermilli (who otherwise does not appear), surely one of the most difficult (and possibly unnecessary) florid arias in all of opera.
The Arabella du jour here is American soprano Emily Magee, who has spent much of her operatic career in European houses, particularly the Zurich Opera House working with musical director Franz Welser-Möst, the guest conductor on this set. Magee is something of a Strauss specialist, but she is now a bit mature for the role of the young Viennese debutante and her singing, while certainly enjoyable enough, never provides the vocal riches of a Lisa Della Casa, Renée Fleming, or Kiri Te Kanawa, all top past and present proponents of the role. Fleming and Te Kanawa in fact, both appear on competing DVDs. The rest of the cast is comprised of Vienna State Opera regulars, led by the fine bass-baritone of Polish born Tomasz Konieczny as Arabella’s rich Croatian suitor Mandryka, and Austrian soprano Genia Kuhmeier as Zdenka, Arabella’s sister pretending to be a boy (because the family is too poor to bring out two debutantes). Kuhmeier excels in the pseudo-pants role and sings well in the bargain. Canadian tenor Michael Schade brings a competent voice but a bit too much intensity to the role of the lovesick young lieutenant, Matteo. Schade seems more likely to go off in a psychotic rage than to be contemplating suicide over unrequited love. The smaller roles, Arabella’s mom and pop, and her trio of aristocratic suitors are also filled with solid singers by the Viennese house. Special mention must go to songbird soprano Daniela Fally’s jaw-dropping performance of Fiakermilli’s pyrotechnic aria. The Vienna State Opera Orchestra is nearly matchless in the Strauss repertoire and led here quite delightfully by Welser-Möst, a fine Straussian in his own right.
My few reservations aside, this set is a fine representation of the opera that will provide viewers much enjoyment, and with its Hi-Def video and exceptional surround sound, it must rank near the top competitively. Arguably today’s top Strauss soprano, Renée Fleming, provides a superior performance, again with Welser-Möst from Zurich, but she is let down by the wayward Zurich staging and a cast of lesser-lights singing around her. Georg Solti’s 1977 set with Gundula Janowitz is technically showing its age, but Janowitz provides another excellent Arabella and Solti drives the Vienna Philharmonic forces in truly exciting fashion. The Met video, under conductor Christian Thielemann, is very strong musically but Te Kanawa, for all her singing prowess, is sometimes a wooden actress, she is not in the same league as Fleming or Magee in portraying the many nuances of the lead role. Listen to Te Kanawa on CD along with Della Casa, still perhaps the best singing Arabella of all time. Recommended.
FANFARE: Bill White
Reviewing DVD version
Strauss: Ariadne Auf Naxos / Isokoski, Claycomb, Allen, Jurowski, London Philharmonic [blu-ray]
Also available on standard DVD
Director Katharina Thoma sets Richard Strauss’ comedy in a country house in the South Downs (a surrogate for Glyndebourne), immediately before and during the Second World War. Hofmannsthals’ conceit—that a hapless young composer has to accept the simultaneous performance of his new tragic opera with a burlesque from a commedia dell’arte troupe—is turned into a touching wartime drama of nurses, invalids and airmen, and of painful delusions and soul searching, before final happiness.
ACCLAIM
“Everything fits superbly and the production captures the fragility of happiness and the undertow of melancholy better than any I can remember. The mellow glow of the LPO under Vladimir Jurowski’s sensitive baton complements the vision perfectly, while a fine cast enhances the pleasure. Soile Isokoski is superb as Ariadne…” – The Evening Standard
“Conductor Vladimir Jurowski ends his 13-year reign as music director by drawing sumptuous Straussian playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In 40 years of watching Ariadne, the opera has never moved me more.” – The Daily Mail
Richard Strauss
ARIADNE AUF NAXOS
Ariadne / Prima Donna - Soile Isokoski
Zerbinetta - Laura Claycomb
Bacchus / Tenor - Sergey Skorokhodov
Music Master - Thomas Allen
Composer - Kate Lindsey
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski, conductor
Katharina Thoma, stage director
Julia Müer, set designer
Irina Bartels, costume designer
Olaf Winter, lighting designer
Recorded live at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Lewes, March 2013
Bonus:
- When Two Worlds Collide
- Thomas Allen at Glyndebourne
- Vladimir Jurowski on his final production as Music Director
- Cast gallery
Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2. 0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Korean
Running time: 121 mins (opera) + 21 mins (bonus)
No. of Discs: 1 (blu-ray)
Eugene Ormandy conducts Richard Strauss
The 4-album Richard Strauss set gathers together all of their early 1960s recordings of the famous tone poems along with Salome’s Dance, the Rosenkavalier and Bürger als Edelmann suites, the Burleske with soloist Rudolf Serkin and the First Horn Concerto, featuring Philadelphia principal Mason Jones. An early review in High Fidelity best summed up their powerful appeal in Strauss’s music: “There is no doubt that, for sheer gorgeousness, the Philadelphians have no peers.” More recent assessments in the Penguin Guide reaffirm that verdict: “Virtuoso orchestral playing … and many felicities of characterization” [Also sprach Zarathustra]; “Marvelous orchestral playing and the two soloists play splendidly with plenty of character” [Don Quixote]; “An extraordinarily voluptuous Philadelphia performance … Ormandy directs with licentious abandon, and the orchestra responds with tremendous virtuosity and ardor” [Salome’s Dance]; “Ormandy’s Ein Heldenleben is an engulfing performance, and the composite richness of tone and the fervor of the playing … bring the highest possible level of orchestral tension.”
OVERTURES, POLKAS, VALSES
Strauss: Symphonic Poems / Weigle, Frankfurt Opera & Museum Orchestra
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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
Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel - Ein Heldenleben
Strauss: Lieder
On his fourth recording in two years, tenor Daniel Behle performs Strauss’ lieder: “I am a lyrical Tenor and as such, one just gets introduced to the Schöne Müllerin, later to the Dichterliebe and eventually to the Winterreise (although I allow myself more time for that one) in the course of one’s studies. At the moment I am quite happy to have opened another page besides the lightly lyrical: to dip into the late romantic era and to discover the outgoing, active and hands-on aspects of the period.”
