It is often said that Richard Strauss had a lifelong love affair with the soprano voice, and it is certainly true that many of his finest operatic roles were written with that voice in mind. In addition, the quality of his writing for sopranos regularly shows their instruments off to maximum advantage. Sopranos have genuine […]
‘Operatic justice’, writes J.B. Steane in his informative and amusing note for this album, ‘is a law unto itself, and the baritone has been prominent among its victims. Unlucky in love, he is seen in the most favourable light as a father-figure and is otherwise all too often the villain of the piece. He may […]
Renowned for the precision of his execution, it was said that Reiner could ‘stand before an orchestra he has never seen before and conduct a new piece at first sight without verbal explanation, by means of manual technique alone’ (he later taught at the Curtis Institute, where he unsuccessful attempted to moderate the young Leonard […]
It is a pity that one of the most acclaimed recordings of ‘Rosenkavalier’ was only recorded as excerpts but at over an hour and including some of the absolute plums of scenes from the opera, it is rightly regarded as a gem among great recordings of Strauss’ music. Included are the Marchallin’s Act I Monologue, the […]
On 11th June 1944, Karl Böhm conducted ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’ at the Vienna State Opera. It was, in his own words, ‘despite the dark shadows cast by the war which was already long since lost, a feast for musical Vienna’. The occasion was the 80th birthday of Richard Strauss which would have undoubtedly been celebrated […]
Karl Böhm made the first complete stereo recording of Elektra in 1960 for Deutsche Grammophon and to this day it remains one of the sonically and artistically most exciting recordings of this work. Böhm knew Strauss personally (the booklet includes a delightful photo of the two of them relaxing together!) and conducted several premieres of […]
This 2CD set brings together for the first time all of Lorin Maazel’s Decca recordings of Strauss’ tone poems with the Vienna Philharmonic (he recorded ‘Tod und Verklärung’ twice, the second time with the New Philharmonia Orchestra). All the recordings were made in Vienna’s Sofiensaal and star VPO principals were soloists in ‘Don Quixote’ and ‘Der […]
Karl Böhm’s only studio version of this work was recorded in 1958. When Deutsche Grammophon originally planned the recording, there were already two rival versions on the market: the Decca recording under Erich Kleiber and EMI’s version under Herbert von Karajan. Karajan’s recording was made in December 1956 and should have included Irmgard Seefried as […]
When the young Karl Böhm, fresh from his studies in Vienna, returned to Graz to take up a post at the opera house which had a good reputation, his place, naturally, was at the bottom of the ladder and the operas of the great Richard Strauss were quite simply out of his reach. He conducted […]
‘If I were condemned to hear only one voice for the remainder of my life I think it might well be hers. If I wanted to be charmed, to laugh or cry I would find her the perfect companion. In her singing … we hear someone whose every utterance bespeaks natural sincerity and truthful feeling’ […]
‘If I were condemned to hear only one voice for the remainder of my life I think it might well be hers. If I wanted to be charmed, to laugh or cry I would find her the perfect companion. In her singing … we hear someone whose every utterance bespeaks natural sincerity and truthful feeling’ […]
Seefried’s radiance and imaginative strength made her a cherishable Lieder singer over an enterprisingly wide repertoire. The songs of Hugo Wolf, less frequently programmed in the 1940s and 50s than today, were something of a Seefried speciality. In her 1953 recording with Erik Werba of 22 songs from the ‘Italienisches Liederbuch’ (made five years before […]
