STRAUSS Till Eulenspiegel. Don Quixote. Macbeth
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Richard Strauss
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: Haenssler
Magazine Review Date: 01/2014
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 74
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CD93 304

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche |
Richard Strauss, Composer
François-Xavier Roth, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra |
Don Quixote |
Richard Strauss, Composer
François-Xavier Roth, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra |
Macbeth |
Richard Strauss, Composer
François-Xavier Roth, Conductor Richard Strauss, Composer SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra |
Author: Ivan March
Till Eulenspiegel was written three years later and I have rarely heard it played better. The spontaneous richness of the descriptive sequences is like a witty kaleidoscope and the result is an undoubted masterpiece. The opening is immediately seductive, with strings and woodwind catching the ear engagingly, and the introduction on the horn of Till himself is played with a perky spontaneity. Among his various pranks, his meeting with the scholarly professors is a highlight, as are the dramatic brass sonorites pronouncing Till’s sentence of hanging. Yet Roth also catches the humour of the rogue’s final forced departure to the next world, cocking his snook as he goes.
Don Quixote is far more complex. Again the music is rich in invention and at times spectacularly scored. Don Quixote is sensitively and movingly portrayed by Frank-Michael Guthmann’s solo cello. His squire, Sancho Panza, is captured equally effectively by Johannes Lüthy’s viola. There is much characteristically fine lyrical writing, which the SWR strings and woodwind obviously relish with sumptuous ardour, and the elegiac close to the Don’s imaginary adventures is certainly moving.
Roth directs all three performances with flair and understanding. They are superbly detailed and realistically recorded.
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