Search - Richard [1] Strauss, Kurt Masur, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig :: Strauss: Four Last Songs/Songs With Orchestra

The all-Strauss program is especially recommended

Laon | moon-lit Surry Hills | 05/29/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Summary: want the best Four Last Songs? Buy this. But buy the all-Strauss program in preference to the newer release in which the Four Last Songs are coupled with the Wagner Wesendonk Lieder instead. However, both are recommended. There are so many great recordings of this piece, especially Kiri te Kanawa, Fleming, Caballe, Eaglen, Lott, Rothenberger. And there are also recordings where arguably the voice is the wrong kind of Strauss voice, the lighter, more silvery kind, for example Lisa della Casa and Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, who despite that reservation both give us wonderful recordings. The only recording I know that I wouldn't recommend is Anna Tomowa-Sintow's thin-toned effort with Karajan.(One of history's small tragedies is that Flagstad never gave us a proper studio recording of this music. She gave the first performance with Furtwangler, of which a scratchy recording exists, apparently taken off the radio. As well as appalling sound, she seems to rush the first song, before settling down for the others. But a proper studio recording, with good engineering and relaxed conditions, and Flagstad in full voice was denied us: I hope Richard Strauss gets to hear it in heaven.) But even with a piece that is so often so well recorded there has to be a best, and in this case it's a clear best: Jessye Norman's is the Holy Grail of Four Last Songs recordings. While Schwarzkopf might have the edge over her for word-pointing, Norman has a huge, even unfair advantage: these songs are supposed to bathe us in warm, chocolate-liqueur sound, creamy and voluptuous as (well, I won't say what, here); and Norman has that richness and warmth and to spare. With all that beauty, the depth of her interpretation is a bonus, almost too much to hope for, but here it is, delivered. The excellence of the performance continues in the rest of the program, more Strauss Lieder favourites. If you like Strauss Lieder at all, you will duplicate many songs already in your collection (Morgan, etc), but with singing like this it doesn't matter. More recently the Norman/Masur Four Last Songs has been re-issued with Norman singing the Wesendonk Lieder. Her performance there is also beautiful, but overall I'd recommend going for the earlier release with the all-Strauss program. It's a more generously filled CD, and I prefer the stylistic continuity of staying with Strauss, rather than jumping to the Wagner mid-way through the CD. The Wagner is greater music than the Strauss songs, but it is in a different mood, more thoughtful and more astringent (it is lush music, in most contexts; only astringent in comparison with the Strauss). Ideally, buy the all-Strauss program, and seek out Norman's recording of the Wesendonk Lieder as well. Despite the preference for the older release with the all-Strauss program, I should say that the Wagner coupling does providfe even greater music, and once you've made the slight adjustment from one composer to the other, you can enjoy another great performance. In either version of this CD, I whole-heartedly recommend this perfect and perfectly beautiful recording of the Four Last Songs. Cheers!Laon"

The perfect marriage of song, soloist, and orchestra

Ralph Protsik | Boston, MA United States | 01/06/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first heard Jessye Norman's recording of Four Last Songs sometime in the late 1980s. I remember vividly working in my office one late afternoon when I became aware of some other-wordly sound coming from my radio. Within minutes my co-worker Ilene walked in and without a word started to listen with me, enthalled by by both Norman's voice and the beauty of these Strauss Lieder. Since then I have listed to the recording perhaps two hundred times, as well as to several other recordings and live performances of the work (most recently at Tangelwood in 2000), and still have not lost my wonder for the piece. Most remarkable are the matching sonorities of the Gewandhaus orchestra and Norman's voice, and the astonishing control Norman has over her breathing. No other soloist of this work I am sware of extends her legatos the way Norman does, especially in the final "Im Abendrot." The interplay of voice and orchestra in the lines "So tief im Abendrot" breaks my heart every time, and is there anything in music to compare to the violin solo in "Beim Schlafengehen"?Years from now, when I'm ready to pack it in and looking for one single recording to play as I slip into the "broad, slow peace" of whatever lies beyond, I cannot imagine it will be anything other than Norman's Vier Letzte Lieder."