Richard Strauss Recordings

Lack of appreciaton is not what I get from reading these responses. However most of the reservations folks seem to have prevent them from truly loving his music. Strauss’ musicianship is always recognized and his manner of ’decorating’ time is one of extreme sonic beauty. But somehow many people seem to ’feel’ there’s something missing. I believe it was Otto Klemperer who said something about him that sums up the dilemma: Strauss was a genius, but he just didn’t care (not an exact quote, but words to that effect). I think that Klemperer, who championed his early operas, felt betrayed. As a young man Strauss was one of the pioneers in the expressionist movement, with the opera’s Salomé and Elektra. Both are very graphic portrayals of violent subject matters and especially Elektra was at the brink of tonal music. That line was consequently crossed by Schoenberg et al, but it seems Strauss had copped out. The next opera was Rosenkavalier and for all its sonic beauty it just feels complacent and even somewhat insincere to me. I often get that same feeling from his orchestral music, no matter how beautifully it sounds. These pieces were all written after Strauss’ decision to stay on the ’safe side’. You wonder if he ever had any regrets about making that choice and live to see Schoenberg, Berg and Webern get all the post war critical acclaim for changing the course of music.

There are a few Strauss pieces that seem to escape his ’escapism’, at least for me. Don Quixote has a deep ambiguity that is very moving and the Four Last Songs have a devastating emotional impact, despite the sentimental sonic atmosphere of the piece. These two I truly 'love', the rest is 'appreciated'.

I was too late to make corrections, but of course the famous tone poems were written before the ground breaking operas. This doesn’t take away the feeling that these pieces have a tendency towards sensationalism. It’s very effective for what it does, but emotionally they don’t really go much below the surface.

Another exceptional piece I forgot to mention was Metamorphosen, like 4 Last Songs a farewell piece of an old man.

As for ’best’ recordings: in the 4 Last Songs the performance of Schwarzkopf and Szell (on UK columbia/emi label) is in a class of its own, as is Klemperer’s version of Metamorphosen (also UK columbia/emi). There are many great performances of Don Quixote, but for me the Tortelier/Kempe (on HMV) and the Fornier/Szell (again UK columbia/emi) stand out.

Going in the desert and return with some new truth sounds very biblical, doesn’t it? Likewise in music such new ’truth’ can easily turn into new dogma and serialism certainly was a very strict and even dogmatic system. It became a sort of smokescreen for a whole generation of mediocre composers to hide behind. As long as you rotated your notes with the required serial pedigree you were accepted by academia as a worthy disciple, no matter how boring or ugly your music would sound. Anyone not committing to these lazy dogma’s was not taken seriously and ’cancelled’ as we would probably call it today. Thankfully strictly serial composers are mostly forgotten, while those who resisted the peer pressure and stubbornly developped their own musical language (while even adopting serial devices) are now the ones acknowledged as the true ’originals’.

Adorno put Schoenberg and Stravinsky against each other in an essay on modern music. In his dogmatic view Schoenberg represented the absolute musical truth, while Stravinsky was accused of going commercial by adopting neo classicism. After the powerful ’earthliness’ of Rite of Spring, etc. this stylistic change was felt as a betrayal. In his mind Stravinsky copped out and adopted the ’wrong’ conciousness. I’m not sure if Adorno ever wasted any words on Strauss, but if he had he would probably have condemned him for not having a conscience at all.

Courtesy of one Frank Zappa.......

Thanks for the link, I will have a look. The Adorno 'school' of dialectic thinking is as much a relic of the past as the compositional 'school' of serialism. And to be clear about my own position in this 'debate': I can 'appreciate' Schoenberg for his historic role of liberating western music from its diatonic straight jacket, but I rarely listen to his music. From the Viennese School I much prefer Berg en Weberg  But I 'love' Stravinsky's music, regardless of the stylistic period.

As for music's cosmic significance, allow me to quote one of the great iconoclasts of American 20th century music: 'information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not beauty, beauty is not love, love is not music, music is the best'.

Knirps for moisture 🤣

Thanks for your observations as well, I agree with most of what you say. It also  reminded me of a book written by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen about Stravinsky. He explains why he believes that in Stravinsky, the most important note is always the ’wrong’ note. This was Stravinsky’s way of escaping the straight jacket of the diatonic rulebook. Thelonious Monk of course did the same in jazz and there are many other examples, including Zappa.

Come to think of it this device goes back at least as far as Bach. How about that one ’wrong’ chord in the closing chorale of the St. Matthew Passion? It is as if the weight of the whole drama crushes in on that single chord. Something similar happens in the closing bars of Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles. The emotional impact of such notes or chords is devastating and worlds apart from the kind of sonic effects Strauss used in his tone poems. I can’t think of a better way to illustrate the ’problem’ that I have with much of his music. I’m afraid Klemperer was right.....

There’s been much discussion about his choice of tempi, which was considered too slow even back in the early 60’s when most of these recordings were made. But to my ears he’s more often right than wrong. This includes his St. Matthew Passion, which is just sublime. The only recording I don’t ’get’ is his Mahler 7. Here the tempi are so ridiculously slow that the piece falls apart completely. I’m pretty much convinced it’s intentional, but completely at a loss to understand what that intention might have been.