Music of Richard Strauss (CD review)

Includes Don Juan, Dance of the Seven Veils, and Till Eulenspiegel. Otto Klemperer, Philharmonia Orchestra. HDTT HDCD157.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) was among the last of the great Romantic composers, although his music leaned a little more toward the modern age in his final years. In the late nineteenth century he was wowing audiences with his symphonic poems, compositions often based on literary and philosophical underpinnings. They were mainly large-scale works, utilizing all the resources of a full-blown symphony orchestra and then some. Occasionally, he even employed additional devices like wind machines in his orchestral works before his moving off into the operatic field.

On this remastered HDTT disc, Otto Klemperer and the Philharmonia Orchestra provide performances of three fairly early pieces, starting with his brief orchestral treatment of the legendary Spanish nobleman Don Juan, known for his many sexual conquests. Strauss had written a number of other works before Don Juan in 1888, but it was this one that pretty much clinched his popularity. It's brash and swaggering music, like its hero, the kind swashbuckling music that years later probably inspired composers like Erich Wolfgang Korngold (The Sea Hawk) and John Williams (Star Wars).

Under Klemperer, the music for Don Juan loses a bit of something in overall bite, the electricity not quite flowing as readily as it does under several other notable Strauss conductors like Fritz Reiner (RCA), Bernard Haitink (Philips), and my personal favorite, Rudolf Kempe (EMI). By comparison, Klemperer's broader pace tends to drag. However, he makes up for any lack of energy in his usual fastidious shaping of the music, giving it a strength and solidity one finds nowhere else.

In the "Dance of the Seven Veils" from Strauss's opera Salome, Klemperer is more in his element, where the conductor's spacious tempos actually work to produce a sensuous and seductive mood. It is really quite effective.

Finally, Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks is here a rather leisurely affair, building slowly. Klemperer does not seem particularly interested in the young man's boisterous adventures so much as reflecting upon them. Still, the conductor adds a good deal of impish humor to the mix (he was not always the solemn gentleman of his photographs, as witness his delightful recordings of Mendelssohn, Haydn, and Schubert). So this Till eventually brims over with mood and charm, right until the title character meets his fateful end.

The back cover says that HDTT transferred these early Sixties' performances from an Angel 4-track tape. You'll remember that's what the folks at HDTT (High Definition Tape Transfers) do. They find the best possible commercially available tapes (and occasionally LP's) of older stereo material and use the most demanding audiophile equipment to reproduce them for CD, DVD, or download, as you choose. In this instance, the sound of the HDCD is exceptionally smooth, with a wide dynamic range and reasonably good midrange clarity. The sonics are a little softer than in some other HDTT transfers I've heard, yet you'll find an excellent stage depth and a pleasing degree of ambient air and atmosphere. If you were expecting something bright and edgy from Klemperer in this time period, you won't find it here. This is very natural, unforced sound, quite easy on the ear.

Oddly, HDTT offer no information on the producer, engineer, or recording date for the album, nor any track timings. For the record, however, I believe the producer was Walter Legge, the engineer Douglas Larter, and the recording dates 1960-61. The timing for Don Juan is 16:57, for the "Dance of the Seven Veils" 9:00, and for Till Eulenspiegel 15:00.

For further information on the various formats, configurations, and prices of HDTT products, you can visit their Web site at http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/storefront.php.

JJP