STRAUSS Don Juan. A Hero's Life
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Richard Strauss
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: LPO
Magazine Review Date: 12/2014
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 65
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: LPO0079
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Don Juan |
Richard Strauss, Composer
Bernard Haitink, Conductor London Philharmonic Orchestra Richard Strauss, Composer |
(Ein) Heldenleben, '(A) Hero's Life' |
Richard Strauss, Composer
Bernard Haitink, Conductor London Philharmonic Orchestra Richard Strauss, Composer |
Author: Hugo Shirley
The change in sound quality between this and the later work is significant and the booklet reveals why: the Heldenleben dates from six years earlier and was recorded at the BBC Proms. It’s all a bit rougher and readier, with the horns, in particular, tending to dominate the texture and the percussion coming across as boomy and clattery. However, it’s a performance that still allows for some subtlety, with nicely characterised violin solos from David Nolan (although he’s no match, in terms of refined virtuosity, for the CSO’s Robert Chen) and careful handling of the critics, whose reappearance before the battle is especially chilling. The battle itself comes across as a titanic struggle, with Haitink driving the martial rhythms hard; indeed, throughout the whole piece there is a bracing sense of the heroic, of cadences fought for and bravely achieved. Despite this, though, the conductor’s command of the work’s vast structure never seems in doubt.
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