Richard Strauss Recordings

I vouch for Lucia Popp too... Great Post... thanks

Strauss' Four Last Songs are very near the top of "My Last Evening" listening selections - my elite selections that I'd want to hear the last night before I would pass from this world. It's like a R2D4 list, but more like beautifully composed, performed, recorded and reproduced music that stirs the heart, mind and soul - records to die with! Being from Cleveland, I am a big fan of the perfectionist conductor George Szell, as he conducted my first concert performance at Severance Hall - Mozart's Symphony No. 40. The Szell/Schwartzkopf 4 Last Songs is great, but my favorite has been mentioned by others above - Lucia Popp! The performance is stunning and emotionally engaging, well balanced, perfectly paced - it flows dynamically without ever being overbearing. The 3rd song contains a violin solo that is gorgeous, but when Lucia joins the violin and orchestra the expressiveness, build-up of tension and resolution are second to none, judging from the tears that well up every time! And the conclusion of the 4th song finishes with such melancholy and gentle resolve that one must ponder it's concluding lyrics - "Could this, perhaps, be death?" What will that moment be like for any of us? Peaceful, sharing the moment with loved ones, yet passing on alone? A call to let go of this world and be welcomed by our Savior. Lucia inspires this hope of a transition to a new, eternal life filled with the promise of Love. Most highly recommended!!

@magister  Thanks for the good words. And yeah, I totally love logic. It will always be an essential, wonderful tool. But still a tool.

Thanks... We will....

my best to you...

Best Zarathustras have and will always be REINER-I, REINER-II, MEHTA-I on DECCA, KARAJAN-I on DECCA.  The Kempe is excellent but has just too much reverb for my taste. Try Kempe's RCA Readers Digest DON JUAN - superb!

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

@mahgister

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...

@mahgister

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...

Very beautiful and moving story ... Thanks very much edcyn...

Indeed even if Stravinsky never moved my heart, i perfectly understand his genius which is indeed without peer...And as i made it clear, we are all different and the way we enter into contact with Music differ and did not do the same effect on each of us...

My musical life changed at 13 years old, i was gifted by a transistor small radio and i was listening the songs of the era in the night hidden under my blanket with small cheap IEM... Then in the college, the teacher taught us about Bach putting Brandenburg concertos on a small turntable connected to two speakers used for this course... I entered in some ectasy right on the spot  without even knowing what it was i felt and why i felt it  and how...I was under a shock as someone seeing angels without recognizing them as such...I discovered THINKING in the silent walking alone right after the music course... I did not even know at the time the detph where i had been touch : the PERFECT HARMONY EXIST...The absolute may exist... Etc...

It was like "number theory" when the very young Ramanujan stumbled by chance on an English mathemathical book from the English Masters of India... But alas! i was not a genius myself...But i could understand how can someone feel in the discovery of a revelation...

After that, music stayed in my obsession, and we were very poor, but i keep my money and buy my first stereo...I rediscovered Bach and entered in some new ectasy listening Josquin Des Prez, Missa Pange Lingua , i was 16... As you see nobody live the same life , and why some music touch us and why the Beatles i listened to as the others never touched me really even if i could appreciate them is a mystery of my individuality...As your Stravinski ectasy who change the way you consider music and life...I started a thread here about the fact that i appreciate Miles Davis a lot but i was more touched by Chet Baker, i did not really understand why even if i can justifying it more than explaining it in a way... It is not logical...

We are all an abyss wrapped in a cosmos and at the same time a cosmos wrapped in an abyss... There exist projective varieties based on a point at infinity and another set of varieties based on a plane at infinity... Mysteries inside mysteries indeed... 😊

« Sorry,too much projective geometry»-Groucho Marx 🤓

@magister Stravinsky actually did change my life...or at least my musical aesthetic. My dad would regularly bring home an LP of classical music for me to give a try, and one of them was Petrushka on a cheapie LP with the Cento Soli orchestra of Paris. After a couple of difficult listens I began to absolutely love it. For a little while, one of my grammar school teachers would invite us to bring in our favorite LP for the rest of the class to listen to. I brought in Petrushka. Boy did everyone hate it! In any case, I still listen to the thing.

@magister  Stravinsky actually did change my life...or at least my musical aesthetic. My dad would regularly bring home an LP of classical music for me to give a try, and one of them was Petrushka on a cheapie LP with the Cento Soli orchestra of Paris. After a couple of difficult listens I began to absolutely love it. For a little while, one of my grammar school teachers would invite us to bring in our favorite LP for the rest of the class to listen to. I brought in Petrushka. Boy did everyone hate it! In any case, I still listen to the thing.

First of all, I really appreciate the discussion here.

I think that there is too much of a tendency to criticize Strauss for a certain slickness and commercialism.  Strauss never wanted to be a starving composer eking out an existence and be feted decades after his demise.  He certainly engaged in self promotion.  I find none of this objectionable.  He became a more self conscious “Great Artist “ as he aged, and that is one of the problems with having created an incredible body of work in his younger years.  Stravinsky had a similar trajectory.

  in Don Quixote I feel that Strauss has a real empathy for the Knight Errant, after the closing music is simply magical.  Heldenleben ends with great sincerity.  And Zarathustra reflects beliefs that Strauss held dear, the same beliefs that inspired Mahler Three.

  I am listening to the Reiner Zarathustra now, from 1954.  Unbelievable record for that age

I feel the same as you...

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 prerty much convinced it's intentional, but am completely at a loss to understand what that intention might have been.

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.

Great post and i appreciate your posts a lot...

It is less the "wrong note" as a stylizing systematic posture of supreme mastery which is not so easily decipherable as a set of "wrong notes" at all but i get the point....

The reason why Stravinski dont moved the heart but amaze the musical grammar master brain in us...If it was always the "wrong notes" he will not be the giant he is...

And Klemperer was a so great Maestro that even when it seems wrong his interpretation are indispensable and never surpassed being only alternative stupendous interpretation of their own...I love Klemperer... But his direction is supremely aimed to a truth OVER any chosen composer real intention ( save in Bach where Klemperer meet his fellow soul )...It remind me of Celibidache direction who also direct anything aiming at a higher truth over any composer intention ... The two are masters of timing quiet contrasted orchestral mass hold in some mysterious equilibrium ... The Klemperer interpretation of Bach great mass rival in slow timing, with nothing falling apart, even Celibidache irrational or supra rational timing mastery... 

Then K. could not love Strauss with the highest love...He was too "serious" deep man suffering from disease all his life to be moved only by seductive beauty without truth...He directed modern composers Schonberg too as you already know...

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..

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.....

😉😁😊

Knirps for moisture 🤣

Ah! a very creative mind...It remind me of his "penguin in bondage song" when i listened to it when i was 20 years old i think without appreciating it because i was immature compared to my initiating friend... this event haunted me till this day... And this initiating friend is alive and always a friend.. Thanks

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

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

Thanks for your interesting post and i like the last sentence a lot...

As for Stravinski, i prefer with the mother of young Stravinski if the anecdote is true Scriabin music .. 😊

Stravinski is the most gifted composer i can think about in the two wars period, i appreciated it for sure but in casual listening...He did not change my life... Scriabin at first listening played by Sofronitsky did in two minutes poem , i realized listening to him that i never understood music in all his depth , as  Bach, Josquin Des Prez or Bruckner did among few others...

For each one of us, life perspective are different... i feel greatly the Promethean impulse to free humanity in Scriabin as i felt it in Beethoven, and stay cold most of the times to the supreme total Stravinski mastery of all aspects of music stylistic... Nobody can claim that Stavinski is not a musical absolute genius to be clear... The part of Stravinski i prefer are his religious works...Because i like choral music too much...

My very best...

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’.

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'.

Adorno so intelligent it was, as Ansermet was at the opposite end,  a very learned and intelligent man and even if i do not partake his catechism about tonality, a way more deeper thinker than Adorno ( i read his mammoth book) They have their clear agendas each one of them ...

And reality had not  wait for our agendas... And as i said FREEDOM come right at the same moment through Jazz first or composers as different as Charles Ives or Scriabin for example  who cannot be put against Schoenberg as mere  neo-classicism reaction .. Then came into the fore right after Jazz , all worlds music "classical" traditions...As in iranian/persian music and Indian classical music among all others.. The first mentor and friend of Philip Glass creating minimalism with other composers , studied american Indian drumming for example...

Adorno was very european centric , and did not understand what is coming in his times , which was FREEDOM , but not in dogmatic atonal dogma AGAINST tonality , ( after all any two  foes ressemble each other  way more than suggested by their apparent opposition, Atonality is only the reverse of tonality, two faces of the same coin)...  Adorno did not understood Jazz as music phenomenon and his analysis is not even wrong but being socially focused beside the musical essential meaningful emerging point... « Adorno’s essay “On Jazz” of 1936 sees jazz as a commodity in the culture industry and as merely a perverted form of symbolic revolt against social injustice.»

And my Biblical metaphor about exile in the desert is spot on, i take it inspired by Ansermet who despise Schoenberg atonality...But unlike Ansermet catechism it was not a return to tonality dogma which came after the war but because of new technologies the world "classical" musics from all world corners... The occidental domination centered in European christian values were already contested by musical traditions which appear as revelations for many of us...Personnally i admired mid eastern music and Iranian and Indian classicals especially... But even didgeridoo australian music can taught us something...

Sound is music by the power of the human brain/body/consciousness... But music in the larger possible meaning of the world , out of humanity, is at the core of mathemathics and then of the cosmos...Music is more than human leisure in esthetic or dogmatic truth... Music is medecine and cosmology and number theory...The greatest thinker in music right now is the creator of non commutative geometry : Alain Connes ...This is one of the deepest lecture in Science i ever heard.., it must be listened to many times.. But it is stunning..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z52ZAPrRbqE&t=487s

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.

There are  ONLY VERY FEW Strauss recordings by Celibidache, notably with the Munich Philharmonic and Radio Stuttgart. They are well,worth searching for. Especially Munich has an obvious connectivity.

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.

I forgot to thank the OP also  for this deep and interesting thread...

My very best...

I said the same thing about Strauss, he expressed himself through esthetics over truth ethic, but you said it way more precisely and way better than i did...Thanks...

Save i dont judge him as harsh as you only because he stay behind the revolution coming in music... This revolution of atonal music , was more a temporary exile from past esthetics endeavour and a stay in the desert waiting for some truth and looking for it over the past esthetics... But paradoxically Schoenberg reject all past esthethics looking for truth with a new esthetic...I prefer Scriabin even over Berg who enter himself consciously in the abyss between tonality and atonality and stay conscious on their border...This is the reason why he is so revered in Russia way less so in the rest of the world... For me Stravinski is like a super-Strauss...Someone i can appreciated and put over every modern composer by his genius but Stravinski never touch this part of my soul and heart looking for truth... As Strauss did sometimes  as you yourself put it in your post...Scriabin is not if we listen all his journey from saturated romanticism to extra terrestrial or deep spiritual expressions a reactionary... He moved us and at the same time  created new worlds with minimal means..

But from this passing in the desert of atonality , musicians discovered freedom at the end, and truth became not a new dogma or a past catechism but the discoveries of all earth musical traditions,oriental and the others and jazz as a true valued musical forms on their own among other values... Philip Glass is an example of this... They are many others like Arvo Paart... Or Robert Simson...

Even if he can be perceived as a reactionary , Ernest Ansermet taught something peculiar about tonality history and very central : truth must be put over esthetics... For sure the future was not to be in the Ansermet deep diktat , the future was freedom at last from all captivity, even from the truth jail...

History of music is in a way an history of human consciousness but not in a linear historical way as Ansermet depicted it in his mammoth book confusing european music with all music...

Thanks very much for this interesting post....

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.

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'.

Well, to be clear, I wasn’t being critical of anyone, especially anyone who posted here (reminds me of being synagogue on Rose Hashanah and being bitched out by the rabbi for the poor attendance.  Like Dude, you’re yelling at the wrong people).

I am just surprised that outside of the 4 Last Songs most posters don’t have much appreciation for him.  They and their systems are missing some fine music.  Nuff said

Strauss is so loved that movies used some of his orchestra pieces almost as often as Vivaldi...

But the way he used voices is for me the deal...

And i will go for Reiner recording for sound quality, there is a 63 cd box i am curious about...

But some of my favorite musical ectasy are not well recorded at all...😁

Truly more less unrecognized geniuses are more for me like Scriabin or Gesualdo, or Robert Simpson...

Our "unconditional" love for a composer can only go to a composer who is way more than a genius only...

It must be for humanity as a whole as Bach certainly was, a revelation, for each one of us, and in particular as Bible for musicians... Bach is that, as only very few other composers could be who reveal to us unrecognized aspects of music on a spiritual side...But these others are matter of personal experiences and we will differ for our choices...

Josquin des Prez or Scriabin and before him Bruckner was revelatories changing life experiences for me...At some revelatory times in my life...

But it was never the esthetic dimensions alone that awake me ultimately in a composer , but the ethical truth revelation over the rethorical means and through the esthetical but over it... If i was more gifted as a musician and i am not, i could perhaps be more sensible to the pure esthetical aspect of all musicians... But i dont read music nor play music...

Each musical event is for me a seeing through the veil more than a sensual event...It is the reason why i love so much jazz, it is because the sensual and sensible living dimension of my body is there in a way it cannot be there in the three hours Christus Liszt...

it is also the reason why through a completely different ESTHETICAL doors, i love so much Iranian or Indian or Chinese or Japan music or middle eastern one... Here esthetic aspect, as new and complete ly different new roads, reveal a new way to ultimate truth...

Not sure how or why you arrived at that conclusion. As I see it, there’s been lots of love for Strauss expressed here. Some reservations expressed in some cases? Sure, including by yourself. Unconditional love? I save that for my children 😊. If you are looking for specific examples of works that I love without reservation, one that immediately comes to mind is “Capriccio”. Everything positive that has been stated about Strauss, but a relatively short (one act) work….for an opera, so it doesn’t overwhelm with the amount of amazing beauty.  It also has one of the great basset horn (a member of the clarinet family) parts in the literature.

Btw, on the subject of familial love. There is plenty of love IN many of Strauss’ works. The listener will notice how he featured the French horn in many of his works. His father was a horn player and Richard wrote many wonderful horn parts for the horn so that his father (a working musician) would have plenty of great solos to play.

Interesting in that in this particular crowd, except for myself and @jasonbourne71  there doesn’t seem to be any love for Strauss outside of the Four Last Songs.  At the very least I would have thought it would have appealed to the audiophile aspect.  Oh well

A favorite:

Richard Strauss - Lucia Popp • Klaus Tennstedt, London Philharmonic Orchestra* – Four Last Songs / Death And Transfiguration on EMI

@rafevw -- Hey! That's the recording I mention above! Jus' gotta love it.

As a sometimes listener of classical music, and one with no formal or even informal music training, for me to listen to a classical piece more than once, it has to speak to me in some, usually in a way that I cannot describe precisely. When asked why I might like a new piece of pop music, I’m the guy who says, “It’s cool.”  I was at a record store in the early 80s and a knowledgeable salesman recommended the “Vier letzte Lieder” with Elizabeth Schwarzkopf. I’ll never forget the first time I heard them. I have not listened to any other recordings of this, but Schwarzkopf sounds perfect, so in control, powerful, but not over the top. And who does not yearn for knowledgeable record store salesmen?

I have had a bit of a love hate relationship with his music, being immediately attracted to Don, Till, Don Quixote,and Death and Transfiguration. I was repelled initially by the egoism in Heldenleben but now I’ve surrendered to its sheer genius (listen to Strauss lampooning his critics with the chirping piccolos, and then listen to the song in Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man for the town harpies that gossip about Marian The Librarian). These are Strauss greatest non Operatic Music, gorgeous Melodie’s, unbelievable orchestration, and real narrative power. The end of Don Quixote is as moving as anything in music, and the small vignettes along the way, such as the bleating sheep that the befuddled Don has mistaken for enemy soldiers, are exquisite.

Two works that I have never fully embraced are Alpine Symphony and Metamorphasen. The former has some superb music, such as the storm sequence, alternating with some second rate Strauss. Metamorphasen, written as the rubble of the Third Reich had not finished bouncing, perhaps for me is undone by its adherents, who make all sorts of claims about what great philosophical truth it contains. For me it’s overlong, although it does have some fine and moving passages, and for me a Strauss canvass without the color of a full Orchestra is like a Rembrandt woodcut-undoubtedly created by a Master but ultimately frustrating because we know what these artists can do with a full palette.

Zarathustra is a special case.  Inevitably the rest of it after the 2001 opening also seems anticlimactic.  It takes a lowering of expectations on the part of the listener and more than most of RS requires a Conductor to really shape it.  Haitink with the Concertgebouw gets a slight nod here over Reiner and Kempe.

The Domestic Symphony is beyond redemption 

I must say for me too that this recording is one of the most beautiful songs ever recorded... And it is the same for his operas...

I think Bach is all truth ethic over beauty....This comes from his mathemathical insight...Beauty comes from truth and from ethics ...

I think Bruckner is well balanced between truth and ethic and sensual beauty as Beethoven was in his own way... Compared to Strauss.... But all that are mere description of my feelings not criticism... Strauss is insanely gifted in colors mastery... He remind me of the colors mastery of Monteverdi...In Monteverdi too, beauty and esthetic win always...

And thinking about that, it is very instructive to think about the works of Liszt from pure esthetics and beauty in the beginning toward maturity and over toward absolute truth controlling every inch of colors and beauty in his Christus which orchestral lonng opening describe heaven for me ...A work so underestimated it is a shame... Bruckner take a lot from it, and  this mastery control of beauty under the hand of truth and ethic...

I think the OP is right, it is very difficult to look for a composer who exhibit the same supreme mastery in orchestration and all dimensions of voices masteries... On par with Strauss i will put the great Monteverdi...The two use saturated colors over melodic line...

In now feel the urgent need to listen to the Metamorphosen with Reiner.... Thanks OP...

I’m just not that strong a Richard Strauss fan. The only piece that truly pushes all my buttons is The Four Last Songs, which I have on an old Angel/EMI LP with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and George Szell conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. Yeah, Don Juan is fun, and Also Sprach Zarathustra has that great opening statement, but I’d personally just rather put on something by Mahler.

I think frogman put it right.... Too much estheticism exhuding through  all holes ,  and lack of self control ethical perspective... Beauty over truth...  But my description is only a description not a critic at all, Strauss is an incredible genius and a master of the voice and orchestra as frogman said too .... One of the true great composers...  

I'm just not that strong a Richard Strauss fan. The only piece that truly pushes all my buttons is The Four Last Songs, which I have on an old Angel/EMI LP with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and George Szell conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. Yeah, Don Juan is fun, and Also Sprach Zarathustra has that great opening statement, but I'd personally just rather put on something by Mahler.

Richard Strauss was more than a fantastic composer and orchestrator. I say this in spite of the fact that, depending on my mood at a particular moment, I tend to have a love/not-quite-hate relationship with his music. If there is such a thing as too much beauty in music, some of his works are just that. The incredible “Der Rosenkavalier” is a great example of what I refer to. How much gorgeous and impossibly interesting harmonic/melodic chromaticism can a human being take in one sitting and without a break in the music itself? 😊 Sometimes, like too large a portion of some delectable dessert. Can leave one feeling over indulged. True greatness nonetheless.

Strauss was not only a great composer he was also a very good conductor and pianist. It is always intriguing to hear a composer’s efforts conducting his/her own works as the potential for some revelatory insights into the music as it was intended is there…..in theory. Unfortunately, few composers have had the conducting “chops” to really pull this off. Strauss could. The “Strauss Conducts Strauss” 7 disc set on DG is a must hear for R Strauss lovers. Pre-stereo era recordings with sound that at times is far below “audiophile grade”. However, if one is willing to take off that audiophile hat and focus on the music they are very very interesting.

Ormandy and the Philadelphia on CBS doing Zarathustra is worth a listen. I have it on LP. Mehta and the LAPO on London doing Zarathustra and the Alpine Symphony is another contender.

Reiner's Bartok Concerto for Orchestra/Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta on RCA is another landmark recording - and favorite of mine!

I agree! Rudolf Kempe and Fritz Reiner rule performances of Richard Strauss! Their abilities to shape the long lines and pace the dynamic buildups are unsurpassed by later conductors!