R. Strauss Ein Heldenleben; Four Last Songs

View record and artist details

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Richard Strauss

Label: Chandos

Magazine Review Date: 12/1987

Media Format: Vinyl

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: ABRD1263

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
(Eine) Alpensinfonie, 'Alpine Symphony'	Richard Strauss, Composer Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra
(5) Lieder, Movement: No. 1, Freundliche Vision (wds. Bierbaum: orch 1918)	Richard Strauss, Composer Felicity Lott, Soprano Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra
(6) Lieder, Movement: No. 3, Meinem Kinde (wds. Falke: 1897, orch 1897)	Richard Strauss, Composer Felicity Lott, Soprano Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra
(3) Lieder, Movement: Das Bächlein, AV118 (wds. Goethe: 1933 orch 1935	Richard Strauss, Composer Felicity Lott, Soprano Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra
(4) Lieder, Movement: No. 4, Morgen (wds. J H Mackay: orch 1897)	Richard Strauss, Composer Felicity Lott, Soprano Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Composer or Director: Richard Strauss

Label: Chandos

Magazine Review Date: 10/1987

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 67

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: CHAN8518

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
(Ein) Heldenleben, '(A) Hero's Life'	Richard Strauss, Composer Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra
(4) Letzte Lieder, '(4) Last Songs'	Richard Strauss, Composer Felicity Lott, Soprano Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Composer or Director: Richard Strauss

Label: Chandos

Magazine Review Date: 12/1987

Media Format: Cassette

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: ABTD1263

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
(Eine) Alpensinfonie, 'Alpine Symphony'	Richard Strauss, Composer Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra
(5) Lieder, Movement: No. 1, Freundliche Vision (wds. Bierbaum: orch 1918)	Richard Strauss, Composer Felicity Lott, Soprano Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra
(6) Lieder, Movement: No. 3, Meinem Kinde (wds. Falke: 1897, orch 1897)	Richard Strauss, Composer Felicity Lott, Soprano Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra
(3) Lieder, Movement: Das Bächlein, AV118 (wds. Goethe: 1933 orch 1935	Richard Strauss, Composer Felicity Lott, Soprano Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra
(4) Lieder, Movement: No. 4, Morgen (wds. J H Mackay: orch 1897)	Richard Strauss, Composer Felicity Lott, Soprano Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Composer or Director: Richard Strauss

Label: Chandos

Magazine Review Date: 12/1987

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 61

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: CHAN8557

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
(Eine) Alpensinfonie, 'Alpine Symphony'	Richard Strauss, Composer Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra
(5) Lieder, Movement: No. 1, Freundliche Vision (wds. Bierbaum: orch 1918)	Richard Strauss, Composer Felicity Lott, Soprano Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra
(6) Lieder, Movement: No. 3, Meinem Kinde (wds. Falke: 1897, orch 1897)	Richard Strauss, Composer Felicity Lott, Soprano Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra
(3) Lieder, Movement: Das Bächlein, AV118 (wds. Goethe: 1933 orch 1935	Richard Strauss, Composer Felicity Lott, Soprano Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra
(4) Lieder, Movement: No. 4, Morgen (wds. J H Mackay: orch 1897)	Richard Strauss, Composer Felicity Lott, Soprano Neeme Järvi, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Author:

These CDs are the first issued in Jarvi's complete cycle of Strauss tone-poems with the SNO. Enterprisingly, Chandos are filling out each disc not with another orchestral work but with Strauss songs using the composer's own orchestral accompaniments, and these will be sung by Felicity Lott. 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 fineast interpretation I had heard. I stand by that opinion, but Jarvi 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, Jarvi 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 Bachlein, which Strauss dedicated to Goebbels with the best of misguided motives back in 1933.
The CD of the Four Last Songs tends to emphasize the resonance of the Caird Hall, Dundee, where they were recorded. No other available recording can equal the sheer beauty of the Berlin Philharmonic's playing of the orchestral score under Karajan (DG), but Lott loses nothing in comparison with Tomowa-Sintow, even if her voice is lighter in texture. For my taste, Masur's tempos put the Jessye Norman Philips performance out of the reckoning, but there is formidable competition from Lucia Popp and Tennstedt (EMI). Judged simply as value for money, though, the Chandos disc is out on its own, offering Jarvi's exuberant Heldenleben where Tennstedt does the shorter Tod und Verklarung and Karajan one other song and a truncated last scene from Capriccio. The selected CD Heldenlebens cited above have nothing else with them. Again, the Karajan is an interpretation virtually in a class by itself, and I like Blomstedt's (Denon) too. But Edwin Paling's characterful playing of the Pauline violin solo would edge me towards the SNO, particularly with the Four Last Songs thrown in. In all cases, I should add, the recording quality is extremely high.'

R. Strauss Vocal and Orchestral Works

(Eine) Alpensinfonie, 'Alpine Symphony'

(5) Lieder, Movement: No. 1, Freundliche Vision (wds. Bierbaum: orch 1918)

(6) Lieder, Movement: No. 3, Meinem Kinde (wds. Falke: 1897, orch 1897)

(3) Lieder, Movement: Das Bächlein, AV118 (wds. Goethe: 1933 orch 1935

(4) Lieder, Movement: No. 4, Morgen (wds. J H Mackay: orch 1897)