Richard Strauss: Orchestral music

[teamsaint]

drawing straws? bingo?

Alpensinfonie Bingo has to be " Idea of the day".
I am in for a card......

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I suppose I ought to come to a decision, 'cause one day, Frau A will discover my treasure chest and demand that I get rid of 73.

[BBMmk2]

Alpensinfonie Bingo has to be " Idea of the day".
I am in for a card......

Full house with me ts!!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The copyright owners of Strauss's works must feel very smug. Works he composed in the 1870's are still earning them money, while Gershwin, Ravel (and very soon) Rachmaninov's works are all copyright-free.

[Hornspieler]

This thread seems to have developed into a discussion about one particular work and not (IMHO) anywhere near Strauss's most important or innovative composition. It is the tone poems which are best known (and loved) by the majority of Strauss fans and it surprises me that hardly a mention has been made of Also Sprach Zarathustra, Aus Italien, Tod und Verklarung, Don Juan and only briefly of Don Quixote.

Anyway, here's a little anecdote to represent what classical music fans encounter in their local record shops:

My sister decided to buy me a recording of Til Eulenspiegel for my birthday. She went into her local record shop, where Art, the proprieter was playing a record by Dusty Springfield.

"Have you got a record of Strauss's Til Eulenspiegel?"

"I've got 'Til then, 'Till you went away, 'Till I see you......"

"No its a classical record. I think you'll have to order it."

Art picked up his HMV catalogue and turned to the letter "T".

"Can't see it here. By Strauss, you say? That bloke who wrote all them waltzes?"

"No, by Richard Strauss. Let me try and find it for you. Ah yes, here it is, look - Til Eulenspiegel"

"Cor! What a 'orrible word! It's something to be able to say a word like that!"

You win some - you lose some.

'mornin all.

HS

[Richard Tarleton]

In the early 1980s, shortly after a visit by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Kurt Masur to Belfast, I was in a Belfast record shop, and a lady asked the assistant (I was standing near the counter) if they had anything by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. The assistant looked completely blank. I suggested she could do worse than the recent recording of Strauss Four Last Songs by Jessye Norman, not long released and which I'd noticed they had a copy of. They both looked at me as if I had two heads, looked at eachother and clearly decided it was best to ignore me completely I don't think it was because they both preferred other versions.

It was your hero Horenstein, HS, who introduced me to Strauss's orchestral music, in a performance of Also Sprach with the Bournemouth SO.

[salymap]

In the 1950s/60s Til and Don Quixote seemed to be played a lot, the other works very rarely. They are both very dear to me but I've caught up with most of his music, although don't know Alpensinfonie amd one or two other things all that well. And the Four Last Songs are heartbreakingly beautiful IMHO.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This thread seems to have developed into a discussion about one particular work and not (IMHO) anywhere near Strauss's most important or innovative composition. It is the tone poems which are best known (and loved) by the majority of Strauss fans and it surprises me that hardly a mention has been made of Also Sprach Zarathustra, Aus Italien, Tod
und Verklarung, Don Juan and.....

This is mostly quite true, and I was at pains initially to steer the discussion away from one particular work. Tod, in particular, is a work that fascinates me more and more. But I can't help wondering whether there's a connection between it and the transformation scene in Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. They sound so similar.

[ahinton]

The copyright owners of Strauss's works must feel very smug. Works he composed in the 1870's are still earning them money, while Gershwin, Ravel (and very soon) Rachmaninov's works are all copyright-free.

Smug's not quite the word that I'd use. I don't know what Strauss himself thought, for example, of Grainger's delightful Rosenkavalier Ramble (for the most marvellous performance of which seek out Ronald Stevenson on the Altarus label), but I understand that his attitude to serious and bona fide arrangements of and other workings with his music was a good deal more lenient than that of his Estate has usually been. There's a story about attempts to apply for permission to reconstruct the fifth last song which had perhaps better not be told; instead, I can only cite personal experience of applying via one of his publishers for permission for an edition and performances of Sorabji's piano transcription of the closing scene from Salome (written some two years before Strauss's death but I don't know if Strauss himself ever saw it) - it took around 14 years but eventually resulted in success. Ahem...

[Hornspieler]

This is mostly quite true, and I was at pains initially to steer the discussion away from one particular work. Tod, in particular, is a work that fascinates me more and more. But I can't help wondering whether there's a connection between it and the transformation scene in Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. They sound so similar.

An experience of great emotion for me was playing Tod und Verklarung .in the Royal Festival Hall with Silvestri and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. A typical example of giving all that one has and still wishing to have given more.

A wonderful work and probably my favourite among the Strauss tone poems.

HS

[richardfinegold]

In the early 1980s, shortly after a visit by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Kurt Masur to Belfast, I was in a Belfast record shop, and a lady asked the assistant (I was standing near the counter) if they had anything by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. The assistant looked completely blank. I suggested she could do worse than the recent recording of Strauss Four Last Songs by Jessye Norman, not long released and which I'd noticed they had a copy of. They both looked at me as if I had two heads, looked at eachother and clearly decided it was best to ignore me completely I don't think it was because they both preferred other versions.

It was your hero Horenstein, HS, who introduced me to Strauss's orchestral music, in a performance of Also Sprach with the Bournemouth SO.

A bity JH didn't record Also Sprach. I've been listening to his Death and Transfiguration lately, paired on a Chandos disc with Hindemith Mathis. Quite god.

[Parry1912]

Quite god.

Praise indeed!

[Thropplenoggin]

What do people here think of Fabio Luisi's Strauss recordings with the Dresden Staatskapelle?

[Karafan]

This thread seems to have developed into a discussion about one particular work and not (IMHO) anywhere near Strauss's most important or innovative composition. It is the tone poems which are best known (and loved) by the majority of Strauss fans and it surprises me that hardly a mention has been made of Also Sprach Zarathustra, Aus Italien, Tod und Verklarung, Don Juan and only briefly of Don Quixote.

Anyway, here's a little anecdote to represent what classical music fans encounter in their local record shops:

My sister decided to buy me a recording of Til Eulenspiegel for my birthday. She went into her local record shop, where Art, the proprieter was playing a record by Dusty Springfield.

"Have you got a record of Strauss's Til Eulenspiegel?"

"I've got 'Til then, 'Till you went away, 'Till I see you......"

"No its a classical record. I think you'll have to order it."

Art picked up his HMV catalogue and turned to the letter "T".

"Can't see it here. By Strauss, you say? That bloke who wrote all them waltzes?"

"No, by Richard Strauss. Let me try and find it for you. Ah yes, here it is, look - Til Eulenspiegel"

"Cor! What a 'orrible word! It's something to be able to say a word like that!"

You win some - you lose some.

'mornin all.

HS

Brillaint, HS!

[Mr Pee]

HS's post reminds me of a time in my dim and distant past, shortly after leaving music college.Whilst working at Boosey and Hawkes I applied for a job at Hyperion records, a junior position but with the possibility of advancement. I distinctly remember the advert, which I think was in Classical Music magazine. One of the requirements Hyperion specified was that applicants "must be able to spell Szymanowski".

I applied and was initially not successful; a number of months passed and I went and joined RAF Music Services. At the conclusion of my 6 weeks basic training, running around and being shouted at, a letter arrived from Hyperion inviting me for interview as they now thought they might have a place for me. By then, I was too commited to the RAF to back out.

I had a wonderful 22 years with the RAF, travelling the world at the taxpayer's expense, but I sometimes wonder how things might have turned out had that letter arrived a few weeks earlier....