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.
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
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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
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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 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...
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