Richard Strauss wrote some of the finest operas of the 20th century. Pieces like Elektra, Salome and Der Rosenkavalier helped push the limits of the operatic artform, and also established Strauss as one of the truly great composers for the media. In a few cases, he created orchestral suites from these stage works, and it’s this music that is featured in this podcast, including his suites for Der Rosenkavalier, Die Frau Ohne Shatten and Josephs-Legende. JoAnn Falletta conducts the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in in this new Naxos CD.
Former horn player Raymond Bisha takes you on a personal tour of this new CD set from Profil celebrating the French Horn, and some of it’s finest players including Wilhelm Bruns, Hermann Baumann, Peter Damm and the legendary Erich Penzel play music by Handel, Telemann, Mozart, Schumann and Strauss.
Richard Strauss wrote his Alpine Symphony in 1915, inspired by the death of his friend Gustav Mahler. This is a huge work, requiring an orchestra of 125 people, and is monumentally difficult as well. This podcast looks at a new recording of the piece with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marek Janowski.
This new title from Medici Arts features legendary conductor Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, filmed during the summers of 1977 and 1978. Featured works include Rimksy-Korsakov’s Sheherazade; Georg Frederic Handel’s Concerto in D Major; Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Lyudmila, Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier Suite; and Wolf-Ferrari’s Overture to Il segreto di Susanna.
Ormandy, who shared the podium with Leopold Stokowski in Philadelphia for two years before he took over as its sole music director in 1938, built on Stokowki’s accomplishments and brought the orchestra to an even greater level of polish. Ormandy remained with the orchestra as music director until 1980, after which he continued as conductor-laureate. He died in 1985. It has been said that Ormandy felt more at home with Romantic and post-Romantic repertoire; the “Philadelphia sound” that he created-which is well-represented on this DVD- beautifully serves the lush, sophisticated orchestrations of composers like Glinka, Strauss, and Rimsky-Korsakov.
Ricarda Merbeth, die Solistin unserer CD des Monats: Richard Strauss, Vier Letzte Lieder (8.570283)
ist auf internationalen Opernbühnen eine gefeierte Sopranistin.Die Wiener Zeitung schreibt “…Ricarda Merbeth, die mit ihrem kraftvollen, zugleich himmlisch klaren Sopran zeigt, wo Gott wohnt”.
Merbeth verleiht dem Meisterwerk von Strauss souverän und ausdrucksstark die Eindringlichkeit die diese Lieder verlangen.
Ricarda Merbeth, die in Wien lebt, ist in den kommenden Monaten u.a. mehrfach in Dresden und Berlin zu sehen und natürlich zu hören.
Einen Überblick über die Konzerttermine von Ricarda Merbeth finden Sie unter www.ricardamerbeth.de .
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