Richard Strauss: Rosenkavalier Waltzes; Burleske; Capriccio Sextet

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
This recording presents a cross-section of Strauss' compositions spanning more than half a century. The Burleske for piano and orchestra, written when he was 20, opens with a burst of youthful exhilaration and is full of confident high spirits, vigor, and vitality. Its drama and comedy, songful lyricism, romantic ardor, ironic humor, airy lightness, and delicacy herald Strauss' operas, while its glittering, masterful orchestration anticipates his symphonic poems. The piano part is brilliantly virtuosic and fiendishly difficult (Bülow, for whom Strauss wrote it, rejected it as unplayable), but Thibaudet's performance is fabulous: not only stunning technically, but absolutely "right" in its improvisatory liberties, its expressiveness, its mercurial mood changes and transitions, and its joyful exuberance. By contrast, Capriccio, Strauss' last opera, composed between 1940 and '41, is born of supreme, mature compositional mastery, but also of disillusionment and resignation. The Sextet functions as a prelude; its quiet, gentle serenity presages the opera's character with a luxurious warmth and soaring radiance that triumphs over the somewhat dry, earth-bound performance. Complementing these relatively unfamiliar works is the most popular excerpt from Strauss' best-loved opera: two sets of Waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier. The first, arranged by the composer, is incomparably better than the anonymously compiled second one: it contains the most beautiful waltzes in a more cohesive, organic sequence, and the orchestration is vintage Strauss at his scintillating best. The playing is a bit pedestrian, but the violin and woodwind solos are lovely. --Edith Eisler

Tracks:

Allegro Vivace/Tranquillo/A Tempo/Un Poco Animato
First First Waltz Sequence
Sextet
Second Waltz Sequence

Amazon.com

This recording presents a cross-section of Strauss' compositions spanning more than half a century. The Burleske for piano and orchestra, written when he was 20, opens with a burst of youthful exhilaration and is full of confident high spirits, vigor, and vitality. Its drama and comedy, songful lyricism, romantic ardor, ironic humor, airy lightness, and delicacy herald Strauss' operas, while its glittering, masterful orchestration anticipates his symphonic poems. The piano part is brilliantly virtuosic and fiendishly difficult (Bülow, for whom Strauss wrote it, rejected it as unplayable), but Thibaudet's performance is fabulous: not only stunning technically, but absolutely "right" in its improvisatory liberties, its expressiveness, its mercurial mood changes and transitions, and its joyful exuberance. By contrast, Capriccio, Strauss' last opera, composed between 1940 and '41, is born of supreme, mature compositional mastery, but also of disillusionment and resignation. The Sextet functions as a prelude; its quiet, gentle serenity presages the opera's character with a luxurious warmth and soaring radiance that triumphs over the somewhat dry, earth-bound performance. Complementing these relatively unfamiliar works is the most popular excerpt from Strauss' best-loved opera: two sets of Waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier. The first, arranged by the composer, is incomparably better than the anonymously compiled second one: it contains the most beautiful waltzes in a more cohesive, organic sequence, and the orchestration is vintage Strauss at his scintillating best. The playing is a bit pedestrian, but the violin and woodwind solos are lovely. --Edith Eisler

Customer Reviews:

Thibaudet gives us a sparkling Burlesque, but there's no lustre anywhere else.......2007-04-21

At 52 min. this CD is short shrift, which wouldn't make much difference if the performances were thrilling. Far form it. The Leipzig Gewandhaus declined into a lackluster group under the aging Blomstedt--they have since almost miraculously revived under their new conducto, Chailly. Here they sleep walk through Strauss's Rosenkavalier Waltzes and the Sextet to Capriccio. Amazon's reviewer is right to spotlight the concertmaster's violin solos in this brief work, however. In concert one is dazzled by his musicality.

The main (and only) attraction here is Thibaudet's performance of Strauss's early, tambunctious Burlesque, and he does it up a treat. This work is one of the pianist's showpieces, and again I agree totally iwth the Amazon reviewer. He is light and improvasitory where other pianists work too hard and generate muscule-bound rhetoric. What a pleasue to hear such a free and easy reading of a work that is far from free or easy technically. blomstedt's accompaniment could be livelier. So the verdict overall is that this CD belongs on the shelves of Thibaudet's die-hard fans, especially those who don't mind needless expense.

OK but better options available.......2005-11-07

I am a fan of Herbert Blomstedt but not much of an admirer of Strauss's "Burleske" for piano and orchestra. I don't find much in this performance that changes my opinion of this youthful piece, which never seems to know what it wants to say or where it wants to go. The recording is distant and casts Thibaudet's playing as if he is in the corner of the hall and the recording mikes some distance away.

THe waltz sequences from "Rosenkavalier" are much better and the recordings are better, too. Blomstedt does good work in them and the Gewandhaus Orchestra is with him all the time.

The fly in the ointment is this: there are outstanding performances of the same music available by several performers. The recording of Jesus Lopez-Cobos leading the Cincinnati Symphony in an expanded set of the Rosenkavalier waltzes blows away this recording by a mile. It is more Straussian, more extrovert, better played and better recorded. That version also contains Jeffrey Kahane's version of the insipid "Burleske" also.

The unique element of this CD is the "Capriccio" sextet, a piece from Strauss's last opera when his music was approaching modernism and reflected some of the disillusionment of the European war then going on.

I've never seen the opera but, to me, the sextet is not very happy music. It reminds me of Strauss's "Metamorphosen" for 13 strings, a dreary piece he wrote late in World War II after Dresden had been firebombed by the Allies. The latter piece represented the fall of Germany through Strauss's music and I think the sextet creates the same mood.

I think Blomstedt is a wonderful conductor and probably much underrated. He has many fine recordings extant, any of which should be considered when you are making a purchase. I don't think this collection is among his best, though.

Another winner from Blomstedt.......2005-06-19

The underrated conductor Herbert Blomstedt has done amazing things with the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra in the past ten years. In this issue devoted to music of Richard Strauss, the waltz sequences and sextet come from 1996 sessions and the Brahmsian (with hints of Rachmaninov) Burleske from 2004 sessions. Those influences make Thibaudet quite at home in Strauss, and he is characteristically free of indulgence. Some people may call this style of playing cold, but Strauss himself always told musicians "to stay somewhere outside the music and try not to get too involved." This does not stop Blomstedt from making the most of his Leipzig forces, encouraging the most bombastic lilting in the waltzes - the orchestra are clearly enjoying themselves. Blomstedt just finished his last season in Leipzig this spring, and it is regretful that more recordings were not made with him in Leipzig. This CD is all the more valuable because of that, and done in a way Strauss would have approved.

To respond to the reviewer above - I am not claiming that this music is the ideal access point to Strauss. I am not even claiming that the Leipzig orchestra is "great" the way Cincinnati, Chicago, or San Francisco Symphony Orchestras were "great" in their interpretations of Strauss - there are different kinds of greatness - different paths leading to the truth. This recording does not replace any recording of the past - and thank God for that(!) - collecting records would not be half as fun otherwise.
Nevertheless, it is welcome to have German music with a German orchestra under a conductor trained in the German style - a combination that is becoming harder to find every day. You don't notice the charm the first day you listen to this recording. I have the Dorati version of Rosenkavalier with Detroit Symphony, and it blew me away initially, but it sounds more like a Ford everyday - seriously. If you don't like this version, try Reiner's Rosenkavalier on RCA (a classic), then come back to this one. It will only be a deeper learning experience with time. The Leipzig orchestra especially takes time to get used to - but they really have something to offer the music that American orchestras don't. That is not to say American orchestras have nothing to offer - in Strauss's tone poems our orchestras excel because of their improved balance in the brass sections.
But I persuaded Decca to release this Strauss recording, because idiomatic readings are a learning experience. Any versions of this music with Fritz Reiner or Bruno Walter in Germany would have been pre-war recordings, and it is about time that German recordings of this music was respected and appreciated.

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