Richard Strauss Recordings
Strauss is one of a very few Composers who had equal success in both Opera and Symphonic realm. For the purpose of this discussion I am confining my discussion to non Opera, so essentially: Zarathustra, Till, Don Juan, Heldenleben, Eine Alpinesymphony, Death and Transfiguration, Rosenkavalier and Capriccio extracts, Metamophasen, the early works (Macbeth, Aus Italian) and the one that I really dislike—Symphonica Domestica.
Sine these are such great Orchestral showcases they have oft been recorded and many as large collections.
I’ve been listening through the Kempe set with the Dresden Staatkapelle recently (the latest reissue on Warner) from the early seventies and primarily comparing it with two sets -the Reiner/Chicago set, dating from the dawn of the stereo era (Zarathustra recorded-in stereo-in to 1954!) from it’s last Sony reissue, and the Karajan/Berlin Phil set from the early digital era.
The first observation here, this being an Audiophile Site, is the incredible quality of the first two sets. At no point, even with the Reiner recordings made before I was born, did I feel that I was listening to anything less than superb reproduction. It’s amazing how much digital replay has advanced, and how much information is in these old tapes. By contrast, the worse recording was the Karajan, as DG hadn’t figured out the new technology, and Von K. no doubt had a hand in twiddling the knobs at the mix. It’s over bright and pace any DG recording of the last third of the last century, lacking in bass and presence.
The Reiner and Kempe are superb collections. It’s a pity that Reiner never recorded the Alpine Symphony, and occasionally with Kempe one gets the feeling of being hemmed in by the bar lines, but those are relatively rare instances and the DSK of that vintage probably still had players who had been conducted by the Composer, who favored that Orchestra in his later years.
I have several other later Strauss recordings but probably it will be just Kempe and Reiner for me going forward
Thanks for the response. Logic has always somewhat of an alien concept in my life. It's always been more of a tool than an outright passion or goal. I made a pretty good living in the film industry employing logical arguments to influence those with the bucks to follow my often totally illogical thoughts & tastes. In other words, you can blame me for the downfall of Western Civilization... |
Another post of you where i recognize me... I used the logic of musical history for example to explain WHY Scriabin is a so much important composer, this does not mean that i am right for some other people with a different perspective nor that i am wrong either.. Sophist used logic as a tool and Plato came to explain to them, or to remind to some of them , because sophists were not all the same, to remind of them of Beauty, Truth, and the supreme good, about which any réthoric promotion will fail and any logic will not be enough: experience of beauty, truth and the supreme good is necessary... And the down fall of our civilization did not comme from logic or rethoric but from the impossibility to reconnect and experience our own roots anew... Philosopher as different as Chesterton, Cassirer or Goethe remind us of that...Materialism and scientism were ONLY thresholds humanity must have passed, but darker spiritual forces prolonged it an ARTIFICIAL way because they benefitted from it ... Why did technology so much dominate us but theoretical science and philosophy of nature is at a stall ? Because consciousness and the experience of consciousness is not understood in an EXPERIENTAL WAY , the great mathematicians Grothendieck and Alain Connes expressed it , one about God and the mathematical experience and the other about mathematics and time experience in physics... Whitehead after Goethe and Husserl in his "crisis of modern science" last book 90 years ago, described why the Cartesian dualism was a dead end a bifurcation as said Whitehead after him , a parting from our spiritual roots and experience of consciousness... The culmination of our civilization destruction is the new cult: transhumanism... i am optimist ONLY because i dont believe in death but only in the body decay... But others people in power fear death and the lost of their illusory power and push humanity in the wrong direction... These darker forces are not a new superstition, they exist all across the universe as life exist too...A.I. is not BORN ONLY on earth...Nor will be BORN on earth soon A.C. artificial consciousness...Other civilizations goes through the same Pandora box and felt the same HUBRIS promoted by Mephisto and described by the giant thinker Goethe ... I am a monist , where the ONE is the womb of an internal pluralities; dualities and polarities are expression of pure creativity and freedom but we are ONE...But we need conscious experience to go back to reality from spectral willed experiences... I spoke me too with "logic" which is only a tool but reality is an abyss or is love... Reality is freedom and is the two..We choose...
I love very much the "metamorphosen" piece of Strauss, because there, there is no more only beautiful music, here there is a consciousness thinking anew ...Here Strauss became more than what he was in the past and seat beside Bach...Truth supreme and the ONE through beauty and the Good and through death ... The "metamorphosen" are less a piece of beautiful music than an act of consciousness in the making before us and with us ... In a way as the "art of the fugue" is an act of musical thinking in the making before our eyes... Sometimes we must STOP comparison to understand and create truthful comparison over any competition race or taste... We must criticize and analyse and describe and feel any works of art going back to the roots where everything is ONE...It is what Strauss say here... We must abandon ourself to regain ourself... This is the thinking process i felth through this piece...Called " metamorphosis" very exactly describing the process of regaining consciousness through thinking as Vivaldi described the 4 seasons, or Bach the musical process, or Beethoven the irrepressible impossible to stop ONE joy or as Sciabin describe the abyss of freedom...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlpNB0WeQaQ
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@magister Thanks for the good words. And yeah, I totally love logic. It will always be an essential, wonderful tool. But still a tool. |
