R Strauss - Ein Heldenleben, Burleske
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Label: Warner
Cat No: 9029502845
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Orchestral
Release Date: 14th May 2021
Contents
Artists
Bertrand Chamayou (piano)Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Conductor
Antonio PappanoWorks
Burleske in D minor for piano and orchestraEin Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), op.40
Artists
Bertrand Chamayou (piano)Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Conductor
Antonio PappanoAbout
Antonio Pappano conducts Rome’s Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in two works from the earlier phase of Richard Strauss’s career: a comparative rarity, the mercurial, virtuosic Burleske for piano and orchestra, with Bertrand Chamayou as soloist, and the epic autobiographical tone poem Ein Heldenleben, one of the composer’s orchestral masterpieces.
“Strauss always thought dramaturgically,” says Pappano. “Recording this music in Italy, the link has to be through opera, with all its theatricality, temperament, contrast and colour… You need a certain charisma in the sound, which these players achieve.”
“Strauss always thought dramaturgically,” says Pappano. “Recording this music in Italy, the link has to be through opera, with all its theatricality, temperament, contrast and colour… You need a certain charisma in the sound, which these players achieve.”
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Ein Heldenleben TrV 190, Op. 40: I. Der Held
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2Ein Heldenleben TrV 190, Op. 40: II. Des Helden Widersacher
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3Ein Heldenleben TrV 190, Op. 40: III. Des Helden Gefahrtin
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4Ein Heldenleben TrV 190, Op. 40: IV. Des Helden Walstatt
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5Ein Heldenleben TrV 190, Op. 40: V. Des Helden Friedenswerke
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6Ein Heldenleben TrV 190, Op. 40: VI. Des Helden Weltflucht und Vollendung
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7Burleske in D Minor, TrV 145
Europadisc Review
Here’s yet another reminder – if one were needed – that the LSO’s next chief conductor, Antonio Pappano (currently music director at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden), is by no means lacking in experience outside the opera house. Here he conducts his ‘other’ ensemble, Rome’s splendid Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, of which he has been music director since 2005, in orchestral works by Richard Strauss. Pappano has steadily made the journey from opera house to concert hall, but for Strauss things were the other way around, with almost all his major works before the turn of the century being orchestral – symphonies, concertos and symphonic poems – before his breakthrough opera Salome (1905) decisively claimed him for the theatre.
Pappano and his Rome musicians present the work that is widely regarded as the peak of Strauss’s orchestral output, the 1898 tone poem Ein Heldenleben, in a recording taken from live performances in January 2018, coupling it with a sparkling account of the one-movement Burleske (1885-86) for piano and orchestra with French pianist Bertrand Chamayou made in October 2020. The pairing is a magical one which betrays little if any of the change in circumstances between the pre-COVID Heldenleben and the mid-pandemic Burleske.
Early critics attacked Ein Heldenleben as a work of outrageous, self-aggrandising bombast, an unashamedly autobiographical work which elevates the composer to the status of hero – and in the process they unwittingly proved themselves as the very targets of the biting attack in the tone poem’s second section, ‘The Hero’s Adversaries’. Yet this is a work that is much more than its overt programme: in its brilliant orchestration, hardly less brilliant proportioning and at times mind-boggling handling of multi-voiced orchestral counterpoint, it transcends categorisation: part-symphony, part-programme piece, but entirely Strauss, with more than a nod towards Beethoven’s groundbreaking ‘Eroica’ Symphony along the way.
Pappano knows how to balance all these competing strands, as surely as he does the various sections and individual instruments of his Rome orchestra. Like some of the most successful Heldelebens on disc, this one doesn’t overdo the bombast, yet at the same time this is far from being Strauss-lite. From the outset, there’s a real bloom to the sound, enhanced by the recording’s palpably live aura, with all the grandeur and energy required for the opening announcement of the Hero’s main theme. The spiky woodwind solos representing the critics are sharply defined. Yet there’s also exquisite beauty and transparency, notably in ‘The Hero’s Companion’, with Roberto González-Monjas’s marvellously poised yet incisive violin solo a huge plus, culminating in a love scene that combines tenderness with Italianate passion.
Pappano keeps the ‘Battle’ sequence under tight control, with taut rhythms and each strand of the crowded instrumentarium carefully delineated, and the whole section viscerally exciting, with blazing brass. In ‘The Hero’s Works of Peace’, with its multi-layered quotations from Strauss’s earlier works, the woodwind are again stars of the show, while the antiphonally divided violins ensure maximum clarity. At the anxiety-laden beginning of ‘The Hero’s Withdrawal’ they are incisive, but the performance, whose exuberance is typified by the moment of sonata-form recapitulation during the ‘Battle’ section, is crowned by its rapt closing pages as the Hero bids the world farewell. Whether or not you buy into the whole ‘programme’ business, Pappano’s cool-headed but urgently involving account is one to be reckoned with, and with a notable frisson to it.
In the Burleske, Bertrand Chamayou proves himself every bit the equal of Strauss’s phenomenally demanding piano writing; this is a work that Hans von Bülow famously rejected, probably on aesthetic as well as on technical grounds. It’s part showpiece, part parody of the late-Romantic virtuoso piano concerto, but here it is infused with a Gallic-Italianate brilliance that is utterly compelling. It’s not just the dazzling pianism that impresses, but also the young Strauss’s experienced hand with the orchestra, while the whole work is wonderfully shaped by Chamayou and Pappano, allowing every salient detail to be heard, and the score as a whole – sometimes regarded as an ‘also ran’ in the concertante repertoire – emerges as thoroughly engaging and poetically satisfying. For those still missing their live orchestral music, this fine disc will come as a welcome tonic, as well as yet further proof of Pappano’s remarkable achievements with his Rome orchestra.
Pappano and his Rome musicians present the work that is widely regarded as the peak of Strauss’s orchestral output, the 1898 tone poem Ein Heldenleben, in a recording taken from live performances in January 2018, coupling it with a sparkling account of the one-movement Burleske (1885-86) for piano and orchestra with French pianist Bertrand Chamayou made in October 2020. The pairing is a magical one which betrays little if any of the change in circumstances between the pre-COVID Heldenleben and the mid-pandemic Burleske.
Early critics attacked Ein Heldenleben as a work of outrageous, self-aggrandising bombast, an unashamedly autobiographical work which elevates the composer to the status of hero – and in the process they unwittingly proved themselves as the very targets of the biting attack in the tone poem’s second section, ‘The Hero’s Adversaries’. Yet this is a work that is much more than its overt programme: in its brilliant orchestration, hardly less brilliant proportioning and at times mind-boggling handling of multi-voiced orchestral counterpoint, it transcends categorisation: part-symphony, part-programme piece, but entirely Strauss, with more than a nod towards Beethoven’s groundbreaking ‘Eroica’ Symphony along the way.
Pappano knows how to balance all these competing strands, as surely as he does the various sections and individual instruments of his Rome orchestra. Like some of the most successful Heldelebens on disc, this one doesn’t overdo the bombast, yet at the same time this is far from being Strauss-lite. From the outset, there’s a real bloom to the sound, enhanced by the recording’s palpably live aura, with all the grandeur and energy required for the opening announcement of the Hero’s main theme. The spiky woodwind solos representing the critics are sharply defined. Yet there’s also exquisite beauty and transparency, notably in ‘The Hero’s Companion’, with Roberto González-Monjas’s marvellously poised yet incisive violin solo a huge plus, culminating in a love scene that combines tenderness with Italianate passion.
Pappano keeps the ‘Battle’ sequence under tight control, with taut rhythms and each strand of the crowded instrumentarium carefully delineated, and the whole section viscerally exciting, with blazing brass. In ‘The Hero’s Works of Peace’, with its multi-layered quotations from Strauss’s earlier works, the woodwind are again stars of the show, while the antiphonally divided violins ensure maximum clarity. At the anxiety-laden beginning of ‘The Hero’s Withdrawal’ they are incisive, but the performance, whose exuberance is typified by the moment of sonata-form recapitulation during the ‘Battle’ section, is crowned by its rapt closing pages as the Hero bids the world farewell. Whether or not you buy into the whole ‘programme’ business, Pappano’s cool-headed but urgently involving account is one to be reckoned with, and with a notable frisson to it.
In the Burleske, Bertrand Chamayou proves himself every bit the equal of Strauss’s phenomenally demanding piano writing; this is a work that Hans von Bülow famously rejected, probably on aesthetic as well as on technical grounds. It’s part showpiece, part parody of the late-Romantic virtuoso piano concerto, but here it is infused with a Gallic-Italianate brilliance that is utterly compelling. It’s not just the dazzling pianism that impresses, but also the young Strauss’s experienced hand with the orchestra, while the whole work is wonderfully shaped by Chamayou and Pappano, allowing every salient detail to be heard, and the score as a whole – sometimes regarded as an ‘also ran’ in the concertante repertoire – emerges as thoroughly engaging and poetically satisfying. For those still missing their live orchestral music, this fine disc will come as a welcome tonic, as well as yet further proof of Pappano’s remarkable achievements with his Rome orchestra.
Reviews
[Pappano’s] Heldenleben is one of the finest I’ve heard in some time, a beautifully controlled interpretation that is often quite extraordinarily moving. ... The love scene has a passionate, almost operatic intensity here... And the closing section, taken astonishingly slowly, is breathtaking and extraordinarily affecting in its sincerity. ... It’s an excellent disc, highly recommended. Tim AshleyGramophone June 2021
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