With this disc, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra completes its recordings of Strauss's full-length ballets, a most valuable contribution to the composer's discography and one that has been distinguished by Denon's exceptionally clear and well-balanced recording. None of the ballets is particularly well known, but those on the keyboard pieces of Francois Couperin are among the least-known of all Strauss's works. They are prime examples of his time-travelling among the works of other composers, of which the best known is of course the incidental music, some of it based on Lully, for Le bourgeois gentilhomme.
The composition and performance history of the Couperin ballets is complex and is lucidly set out in the notes by Kenji Kaneko which accompany this disc. Twenty-five movements are recorded here. The Tanzsuite (comprising eight items) dates from 1923, when Clemens Krauss conducted it as a ballet in Vienna. For Krauss in Munich in 1941, Strauss added six new pieces to the suite to make the ballet Verklungene Feste. (Couperin was much in his mind at the time, for he parodied him gently in three dances in the opera Capriccio.) The Divertimento, a concert suite, comprises the six pieces of Verklungene Feste (''The extinguished festival'') plus two new pieces. This was conducted by Krauss in Vienna in January 1943.
Leinsdorf's ASV performance of the Divertimento with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe is delightful, but how much better it is to have all the Couperin pieces under one roof, as it were. I expect devotees of original-instrument baroque performance and style will go screaming up the wall when they hear Strauss's tinkling celesta and harpsichord, his well-cushioned harmonies and the injection of his romantic idiom into this music. All I can say is that I find it most enjoyable, not so highly inventive as the Gentilhomme Suite, but full of unexpected pleasures and most piquantly and expertly orchestrated. If one enjoys Stravinsky's Pulcinella, there is no reason not to enjoy Strauss's Couperin, but I urge you to take advantage of the technology of Compact Discs and make your own selection, at any rate after the first play-through. An hour at a stretch is a bit much. The performances under Wakasugi are thoroughly polished and congenial.'