Strauss: Don Juan and Ein Heldenleben
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mariss Jansons
Awards:
-
Building a Library, October 2019, Recommended Recording
This Don Juan is not about impulse and surprise, the 24-year-old composer's original goals. Rather it languidly reveals the tonal beauty of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra - unquestionably...
Strauss: Don Juan and Ein Heldenleben
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mariss Jansons
Purchase product
Awards:
-
Building a Library, October 2019, Recommended Recording
This Don Juan is not about impulse and surprise, the 24-year-old composer's original goals. Rather it languidly reveals the tonal beauty of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra - unquestionably...
About
In these live recordings, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and its longtime chief conductor Mariss Jansons present two "heroic" tone poems by Richard Strauss. With his "Don Juan", the young and aspiring Strauss secured himself a lasting place in the musical life of the German Empire and proved to be a prematurely consummate master of the symphonic poem genre. "Ein Heldenleben" ("A Hero's Life"), written at the turn of the 20th century, is a work of unshakeable self-confidence in every regard. Strauss left everyone in little doubt that he had portrayed himself as the hero in his music, and the work met with an ambivalent reception. Today, with its massive score for over one hundred musicians, "Ein Heldenleben" ranks as one of the great touchstones for a symphony orchestra – and with its extensive solo violin part, for a concertmaster too.
Recent live recording from February 2014 (Ein Heldenleben)
Release coincides with the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth (1864-1949)
Mariss Jansons' second release of works by Richard Strauss (2010: CD 900707 - Rosenkavalier Suite, Till Eulenspiegel and Four Last Songs)
Contents and tracklist
- Anton Barachovsky (violin)
- Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
- Mariss Jansons
- Recorded: 14-18 March 2011
- Recording Venue: Philharmonie, Gasteig, Munich, Germany
Awards and reviews
April 2015
This Don Juan is not about impulse and surprise, the 24-year-old composer's original goals. Rather it languidly reveals the tonal beauty of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra - unquestionably one of the world's most sophisticated orchestras - in tandem with a recording which keeps a slight detail to tell...In short, Jansons prefers abstraction to telling a tale.
March 2015
There's a tangible sense of self-doubt and vulnerability lurking somewhere amidst the shadows…I found the closing section of Janson's [Don Juan] deeply moving…this latest Heldenleben is largely self-recommending, easily holding its ground in an increasingly competitive field.
