Strauss - Eine Alpensinfonie ~ Rosenkavalier Suite / Wiener Phil., Thielemann

Track Listings
1. Eine Alpensinfonie: Nacht    
2. Eine Alpensinfonie: Sonnenaufgang    
3. Eine Alpensinfonie: Der Anstieg    
4. Eine Alpensinfonie: Eintritt in den Wald - Wanderung neben dem Bache    
5. Eine Alpensinfonie: Am Wasserfall - Erscheinung    
6. Eine Alpensinfonie: Auf blumigen Wiesen    
7. Eine Alpensinfonie: Auf der Alm    
8. Eine Alpensinfonie: Durch Dickicht und Gestrupp auf Irrwegen    
9. Eine Alpensinfonie: Auf dem Gletscher    
10. Eine Alpensinfonie: Gefahrvolle Augenblicke    
11. Eine Alpensinfonie: Auf dem Gipfel    
12. Eine Alpensinfonie: Vision    
13. Eine Alpensinfonie: Nebel steigen auf - Die Sonne verdustert sich    
14. Eine Alpensinfonie: Gewitter und Sturm, Abstieg    
15. Eine Alpensinfonie: Sonnenuntergang    
16. Eine Alpensinfonie: Ausklang    
17. Eine Alpensinfonie: Nacht    
18. Rosenkavalier Suite: Con moto agitato    
19. Rosenkavalier Suite: Allegro molto    
20. Rosenkavalier Suite: Tempo di Valse, assai comodo da primo    
See all 22 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Strauss's Alpine Symphony, completed in 1915, is both a programmatic description of a mountain climb and a symphony in structure and thematic development. It represents a major challenge for conductors and the massive orchestral forces who must meld program and structure while giving full due to the pantheistic nature-worshiping subtext, and the wide emotional range, from a mysterious "Night" opening to the descent in a thunderstorm. That may be why it often fails to come off in performance, although old Strauss hands like Kempe, von Karajan, Solti, and Mehta have given the work its due, with the latter two aided by spectacular engineering. Thielemann doesn't match them in this live concert performance with a great Strauss orchestra, partly because of skewed balances and muffed details, but mainly because his sprawling interpretation neglects the work's structural elements. The Rosenkavalier Suite also suffers from a heavy hand at the helm, making it disjointed and episodic. Two-dimensional sonics don't help, either. --Dan Davis

Strauss - Eine Alpensinfonie ~ Rosenkavalier Suite / Wiener Phil., Thielemann, Music, Richard Strauss, Christian Thielemann, Wiener Philharmoniker, Anton Holzapfel, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Orchestral, Orchestral & Symphonic, Romantic Symphony, Suite for Orchestra, Symphonic
Strauss - Eine Alpensinfonie ~ Rosenkavalier Suite / Wiener Phil., Thielemann
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • A few shaky steps on the way up the mountain
  • Inspired
  • Great Performances of Richard Strauss' Music
  • Great stuff
 Strauss - Eine Alpensinfonie ~ Rosenkavalier Suite / Wiener Phil., Thielemann
Wiener Philharmoniker
Manufacturer: Deutsche Grammophon
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00005AAFA
Release Date: 2001-05-08

Tracks:

  1. Eine Alpensinfonie: Nacht
  2. Eine Alpensinfonie: Sonnenaufgang
  3. Eine Alpensinfonie: Der Anstieg
  4. Eine Alpensinfonie: Eintritt in den Wald - Wanderung neben dem Bache
  5. Eine Alpensinfonie: Am Wasserfall - Erscheinung
  6. Eine Alpensinfonie: Auf blumigen Wiesen
  7. Eine Alpensinfonie: Auf der Alm
  8. Eine Alpensinfonie: Durch Dickicht und Gestrupp auf Irrwegen
  9. Eine Alpensinfonie: Auf dem Gletscher
  10. Eine Alpensinfonie: Gefahrvolle Augenblicke
  11. Eine Alpensinfonie: Auf dem Gipfel
  12. Eine Alpensinfonie: Vision
  13. Eine Alpensinfonie: Nebel steigen auf - Die Sonne verdustert sich
  14. Eine Alpensinfonie: Gewitter und Sturm, Abstieg
  15. Eine Alpensinfonie: Sonnenuntergang
  16. Eine Alpensinfonie: Ausklang
  17. Eine Alpensinfonie: Nacht
  18. Rosenkavalier Suite: Con moto agitato
  19. Rosenkavalier Suite: Allegro molto
  20. Rosenkavalier Suite: Tempo di Valse, assai comodo da primo
  21. Rosenkavalier Suite: Moderato molto sostenuto
  22. Rosenkavalier Suite: Schneller Waltzer. Molto con moto

Amazon.com

Strauss's Alpine Symphony, completed in 1915, is both a programmatic description of a mountain climb and a symphony in structure and thematic development. It represents a major challenge for conductors and the massive orchestral forces who must meld program and structure while giving full due to the pantheistic nature-worshiping subtext, and the wide emotional range, from a mysterious "Night" opening to the descent in a thunderstorm. That may be why it often fails to come off in performance, although old Strauss hands like Kempe, von Karajan, Solti, and Mehta have given the work its due, with the latter two aided by spectacular engineering. Thielemann doesn't match them in this live concert performance with a great Strauss orchestra, partly because of skewed balances and muffed details, but mainly because his sprawling interpretation neglects the work's structural elements. The Rosenkavalier Suite also suffers from a heavy hand at the helm, making it disjointed and episodic. Two-dimensional sonics don't help, either. --Dan Davis

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars A few shaky steps on the way up the mountain.......2003-07-28

Christian Thielemann clearly believes in Richard Strauss' once-derided "Alpensinfonie," and you don't need to read the conductor's comments in the liner notes to grasp that he revels in Strauss' orchestration. It's in delineating the many strands of the orchestral texture that Thielemann excels here, aided considerably by a fired-up Vienna Philharmonic (the brasses in particular are outstanding--such as the raspy trombones which are noticeably repressed in the Herbert von Karajan recording).

Thielemann's enthusiasm sometimes gets the better of him, to the detriment of the work's structural integrity. Compared to Karajan or Rudolf Kempe, you're more aware listening to this CD that the piece moves from scene to scene. It isn't helped by his tendency to draw out the endings of phrases and sometimes slack off on the pace--effects which probably played better in concert than they do captured for posterity. However, the conductor's occasional missteps aren't enough to send the performance skidding back down the mountain.

What does threaten to jeopardize the expedition, though, is the recording job--a major consideration in a "blockbuster" work like this. The sense of scale and dynamic range are impressive, but there's a frustrating lack of "depth" and "presence" to the instruments. It's like listening to vividly detailed cardboard cutouts in a reverberant hall, instead of three-dimensional strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion. The Amazon "editorial review" for this release gets it just right when referring to the sonics as "two-dimensional." The third dimension, the sense of "you are there" realism, that you get from well-recorded CDs (such as Andre Previn's Telarc disc of this piece with the same orchestra in the same hall) is utterly lacking here. Maybe the SACD version (which I haven't heard) imparts more presence, but in the standard CD format the spatial resolution is quite limited. Disappointing, coming from one of the world's major record labels.

Perhaps due to the misjudged engineering, a few of the details go awry: The distant "hunting horns" are TOO distant; the "cowbells" in the "mountain pasture" sequence don't sound at all natural; and the wind machine in the "thunderstorm and descent" is only sporadically audible.

Despite these technical slips (which may be less annoying to some), on the whole Thielemann ably takes us up the mountain and back down again, revealing features of the terrain we may not have been aware of before. Once we're back in the lowlands, Thielemann and Co. give us an equally idiomatic account of the 1945 "Rosenkavalier Suite" which was apparently assembled by the conductor Artur Rodzinski (with help, according to one story, from his assistant, Leonard Bernstein), rather than by the 80-year-old Strauss.

5 out of 5 stars Inspired.......2002-09-13

Thielemann pulls off an inspired reading of this late romantic masterpiece. Needless to say, it helps having the Wiener Philarmoniker at one's disposal. Textures are generally thicker, with a palpable sense of mystery and atmosphere. The state-of-the-art sonics verge on the spectacular, with plenty of details unfolding naturally and effortlessly. Thielemann, as his customs, adopts the traditional German seating position, now rare among modern orchestras. This conductor has not always been successful in the standard repertoire, but he seems to be going from strenght to strenght.

As it stands, this is a prime recommendation.

5 out of 5 stars Great Performances of Richard Strauss' Music.......2002-05-24

Christian Thielemann has cemented his well deserved reputation as one of our finest interpreters of Richard Strauss' music in this splendid CD of Eine Alpensinfonie and the Rosenkavalier Suite. Both are exciting, brilliant performances, with the Rosenkavalier Suite performed as though these waltzes were composed by the Strauss family, not Richard Strauss. I doubt I have heard a more exciting performance of Eine Alpensinfonie; the only relatively recent recording which comes close is Sir Georg Solti's Decca recording with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. I strongly commend Deutsche Grammophon's sound engineers for producing a recording that sounds as well balanced as any recorded in a studio. Surely fans of both Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra will want to acquire this fine CD.

5 out of 5 stars Great stuff.......2001-06-12

Thielemann and the VPO have really surpassed themselves this time. This is a live performance, recorded in the Musikverein's Grosser Saal in October 2000. Rarely have the strings of the VPO sounded so rich and each episode is clearly defined, though with a definite line.

The make-weight is a Suite from "Der Rosenkavalier", not the usual waltz suites, but something quite different and enjoyable.

Go out and get it.

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