Richard Strauss - Don Quixote & Till Eulenspiegel & Don Juan - Clemens KraussCD - ADD - Cover - 72'58
Testament SBT 1185, released 2000
Richard Strauss(1864-1949)
1-14 Don Quixote - Fantastische Variationen über ein Thema ritterlichen Charakters, Op.35, ℗ 1953
Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character
Variations fantastique sur un théme de caractère chevaleresque
15 Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche - Symphonische Dichtung, Op.28, ℗ 1951
Till Eulenspiegels Merry Pranks - Symphonic Poem
Plaisantes farces de Till l'espiègle - Poème symphonique
16 Don Juan- Symphonische Dichtung, Op.20 ℗ 1951
Symphonic Poem
Poème symphonique
Pierre Fournier(cello) - Ernest Moraweg(viola)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra(Concert-master: Willi Boskovsky)
conducted by/Dirigent/direction: Clemens Krauss
These recordings made near the end of Clemens Krauss's life - the Don Quixote was made in 1953 and he died the next year on tour in Mexico - are part of a group of Strauss works Krauss recorded for Decca after the war with the Vienna Philharmonic. Sadly, they were made just a few years before the advent of stereo - part of the reason I give them only four stars. With that said, the Decca engineers did the best they could under less than ideal circumstances - the old recording venue having been bombed during the war. To my ear the two shorter works fare better sonically, while the longer, more complex recording challenge of Don Quixote, with its prominent roles for soloists, fares less well, sounding at times cavernous. The performances can be summed up succinctly - Til and Don Juan receive relatively mainstream readings, but Krauss approaches Don Quixote with a wider mixture of elements, from humorous links to previous works of Strauss, to a trace of, if not tacituntiy, certainly more reticence than I've heard in this music.
Indeed, excellent as the other performances indeed sound, it's the Don Quixote which lingers. Krauss makes clear from the first that this Knight of the Woeful Countenance is related by blood to the lusty youth Til Eulenspiegel, even as he allows cellist Pierre Fournier to present an introspective, somehwat craggy take on the poor old Don. Krauss allows his solists an inordinately out of balance prominence - out front and center stage to a great degree - perhaps partly he nature of the recording venue. There is a certain deliberate downplaying of the orchestra forces natural proclivities to run a bit amok in the great Strauss fortes, Krauss keep a short chain on the massed beast always threatening to spring into the fray and dominate the action. Of course, there ares till moments of glory when the Don runs into problems, and the bleeting sheep are great, but the care Krauss takes with the wind machine section, his insistence the strings swell just so and no more, makes clear this Don Quixote will never descend into a cheap orgiastic pandemonium. Overall the elements play second fiddle to Fournier's reflecting quest. The monural sound we hear of his cello takes on a dark, sombre coloring, and this is further reinforced and reflected back in the dark tonalities we hear when the Vienna Philharmonic weighs in for their parts. - Amazon customer
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