Fritz Reiner Richard Strauss recordings

[Barbirollians]

I sadly missed the short lived big CD box of his Sony and Columbia recordings the other year but recently bought a second hand Living Stereo coupling of Don Quixote and Don Juan only to discover that the former owner had put it in a 2CD jewel case and hidden inside were the booklet and CD of his Also Sprach Zarathustra and Ein Heldenleben.

A very fine bonus and what thrilling performances they are in very early stereo . Not the only way to play this music but the Chicago SO play their socks off. Are these favourites of other forumites ? Kempe has always tended to be my go to in Richard Strauss’s orchestral works.

[Rolmill]

I sadly missed the short lived big CD box of his Sony and Columbia recordings the other year but recently bought a second hand Living Stereo coupling of Don Quixote and Don Juan only to discover that the former owner had put it in a 2CD jewel case and hidden inside were the booklet and CD of his Also Sprach Zarathustra and Ein Heldenleben.

A very fine bonus and what thrilling performances they are in very early stereo . Not the only way to play this music but the Chicago SO play their socks off. Are these favourites of other forumites ? Kempe has always tended to be my go to in Richard Strauss’s orchestral works.

Yes indeed - one of my oldest CDs is an RCA Red Seal issue of Reiner/CSO in Also Sprach, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Suite and his own arrangement of Der Rosenkavalier Waltzes. Haven't played it for several years, but I recall finding Also Sprach very exciting.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes indeed - one of my oldest CDs is an RCA Red Seal issue of Reiner/CSO in Also Sprach, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Suite and his own arrangement of Der Rosenkavalier Waltzes. Haven't played it for several years, but I recall finding Also Sprach very exciting.

A truly great Strauss conductor, but I regret that he avoided the composer’s final tone poem.

[Barbirollians]

Yet he recorded the Domestica ,a much inferior work - odd . Is it known why he spurned the Alpine ?

[Barbirollians]

The Don Quixote is special too. The cello and viola soloists obviously but also there is quite outstandingly beautiful wind playing and in the sizzling performance of Don Juan too.

[HighlandDougie]

A truly great Strauss conductor, but I regret that he avoided the composer’s final tone poem.

According to Michael Kennedy's Strauss biography (Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma), Reiner conducted the second performance of Eine Alpensinfonie - in Dresden - on the day after Strauss himself had conducted the première in Berlin (with the Dresden Hofkapelle - also conducted by Reiner the next day). Reiner also conducted it with the NYPO in 1924 but thereafter the trail goes cold, unless someone better practised than I with their search engine can access the Chicago SO archives. He doesn't seem to have conducted it while with the Pittsburgh SO and doesn't seem to have recorded it, according to the discography in the Stokowski.org pages devoted to Reiner.

[Petrushka]

According to Michael Kennedy's Strauss biography (Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma), Reiner conducted the second performance of Eine Alpensinfonie - in Dresden - on the day after Strauss himself had conducted the première in Berlin (with the Dresden Hofkapelle - also conducted by Reiner the next day). Reiner also conducted it with the NYPO in 1924 but thereafter the trail goes cold, unless someone better practised than I with their search engine can access the Chicago SO archives. He doesn't seem to have conducted it while with the Pittsburgh SO and doesn't seem to have recorded it, according to the discography in the Stokowski.org pages devoted to Reiner.

The NYPO concert archive is fascinating but, like you, I've never been able to access the Chicago SO archives (or Cleveland Orch come to that). I suspect where Reiner is concerned that it may well have been a case of the record company accountants breaking out into a sweat over the extra expense needed for a work not often heard and of dubious merit.

In a similar vein, I read in Richard Osborne's Karajan biography that HvK wanted to record the Shostakovich 8 with the Philharmonia but EMI executives vetoed it.

[Barbirollians]

The NYPO concert archive is fascinating but, like you, I've never been able to access the Chicago SO archives (or Cleveland Orch come to that). I suspect where Reiner is concerned that it may well have been a case of the record company accountants breaking out into a sweat over the extra expense needed for a work not often heard and of dubious merit.

In a similar vein, I read in Richard Osborne's Karajan biography that HvK wanted to record the Shostakovich 8 with the Philharmonia but EMI executives vetoed it.

How fascinating an HVK Shostakovich 8 from that period of his career would have been.

[Petrushka]

How fascinating an HVK Shostakovich 8 from that period of his career would have been.

It certainly would and towards the end of his life there were plans to record more Shostakovich. It does go to show that we shouldn't judge a conductor's work by their recordings alone. This is what makes orchestra concert archives such a fascinating read.

[Bryn]

Re Karajan, any conductor who cuts Walton's 1st deserves nowt but contempt for such sub-Sargent lack of musicality.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Re Karajan, any conductor who cuts Walton's 1st deserves nowt but contempt for such sub-Sargent lack of musicality.

Wow! Two killed by a single bullet.

[vinteuil]

Wow! Two killed by a single bullet.

... yes indeed!

The usual two-for-the-price-of-one is of course Beecham's description of van Karajan as "a musical Malcolm Sargent"


.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... yes indeed!

The usual two-for-the-price-of-one is of course Beecham's description of van Karajan as "a musical Malcolm Sargent"


.

Though Beecham was fickle, having once described Sargent as "the finest of our conductors - myself excepted, of course".

[Keraulophone]

On hearing that Sargent had been shot at in Palestine: “I had no idea the Arabs were so musical”.

[makropulos]

I sadly missed the short lived big CD box of his Sony and Columbia recordings the other year but recently bought a second hand Living Stereo coupling of Don Quixote and Don Juan only to discover that the former owner had put it in a 2CD jewel case and hidden inside were the booklet and CD of his Also Sprach Zarathustra and Ein Heldenleben.

A very fine bonus and what thrilling performances they are in very early stereo . Not the only way to play this music but the Chicago SO play their socks off. Are these favourites of other forumites ? Kempe has always tended to be my go to in Richard Strauss’s orchestral works.

Thrilling indeed. The whole of that box is pretty astonishing but of the RCA stereo recordings in there my personal highlights are the Heldenleben, Bourgeois gentilhomme and a really glorious, radiant and tender Don Quixote.