Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra (Streaming review)

By Bill Heck

Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra. Valdimir Jurowski, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin. Pentatone

Back in the day, recordings of Strauss's sprawling tone poem, Also Sprach Zarathustra (hereinafter ASZ) were a favorite audiophile system test. Did the opening sustained bass note from the organ rattle the windows? Could the huge orchestral outbursts scare the cat? And let's not forget the tremendous boost in interest generated by the use of this music in Stanley Kubrick's classic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Often lost among those sorts of breathless queries were more mundane questions such as whether this was music worth hearing in the first place and, if so, what was the quality of the given performance?

Richard Strauss

These days, at least casual observation suggests that the music of Richard Strauss has dropped out of favor. I certainly don't recall seeing loads of new releases featuring his tone poems, especially this one. Perhaps our taste became more "sophisticated" as we concentrated on historically informed performances of the baroque and classical repertoire. (Surely even the most HIP-happy would not dream of applying its lessons to one of Strauss's tone poems!) But perhaps another reason was that classical music lovers just got tired of run-through performances designed for maximum sonic impact or lovely chords without much thought to capturing the expressiveness of the compositions, of treating them as serious music that should be played seriously.

That said, there’s certainly no shortage of recorded performances of ASZ, what with umpteen versions dating from the mid-1950’s onward. The best of these, from famous names such as Reiner and Karajan, reveal the glories of Strauss’s orchestration, often in remarkably good sound; Strauss fans surely had nothing to complain about. But – and I admit this only sheepishly, even though I know that I had a certain amount of company – some of us found even the most well-regarded recordings a little too much of a good thing. I (we) found ourselves losing focus halfway through, wandering off to attend to other chores before the final notes rang out, or perhaps even drifting off, although I (we) always blamed it on recent sleep deprivation rather than the music. At least for me, the result was that I had not listened to this work in many years.

Vladimir Jurowski

So I admit that I cranked up this performance from my streaming feed as a lark, not really expecting all that much, looking, I guess, for that little dose of audiophile oomph. But then something odd happened. I heard musicians playing as if they really meant it, a conductor bringing out moments of sheer beauty, not just for audio effect and not even just for the beauty alone, but as part of a unified narrative, the whole creating a musical experience that was not only impressive but was truly engaging.

I also heard one of the clearer recordings of an orchestra that has come through my system in some time. In my experience, an issue with orchestral recordings is that there is some level of congestion, making it difficult to hear all the details that would be apparent in the concert hall. Orchestral recordings also tend to overemphasize the violins and give them a steely tone. The Pentatone engineers have managed to overcome these problems. The smallest details emerge from the proverbial black (meaning silent) background, while the sound hangs together through the loudest climaxes. Add to that a nice wide stereo image and we have a winner.

It's all good, right? Well, I suppose that this version will not be everyone's cup of tea. What I hear, and appreciate, as keeping things moving and structured will strike some as lacking in emotion and not letting the music breathe. In fact, Jurowski does set some quickish tempo, especially right out of the gate: his opening prelude zips in at 1:22 instead of the more common two minutes or so. And yes, we could ask for more expansive views at certain points, such as in the Tanzlied (8th segment). But I appreciate the "let's get on with it" approach that helps to clarify the structure of the work (yes, there is some structure) and, frankly, keeps me awake. YMMV.

Moreover, I should add another cautionary note. The Rundfunk group plays well, but it just doesn't have quite the power of, say, its larger cousin in Berlin. That's not to say that the band sounds wimpy; this issue is evident only on direct comparison with performances by the truly big dogs. In any case, although I miss the last bit of orchestral might when I'm in comparative mode, if I just sit down to listen the sound is way more than adequate.

Finally, we need to clarify just what we have here in terms of a musical product. You’ll notice that the header says “Streaming review” and that, although the Pentatone label is given, there’s no catalog number. That’s because this release is not available as a physical product, but rather as a download directly from the Pentatone website, or as a stream, either from the Pentatone website or from a streaming service, e.g., Amazon, Apple, Idagio, Qobuz, etc. (Pentatone downloads are, in turn, available in “high Quality” – CD reolution– and two higher resolution versions.) Then again, if you really want a CD, the performance appears to be a re-release of one previously issued on a 2017 CD that also included two works by Mahler. That release included a useful booklet; the booklet is not included with the current streaming/download release. (However, the new release makes each movement a separate track; for some reason, the original CD did not.) The lack of a booklet is not because the streaming version couldn’t have one: my current streaming service (Qobuz) does provide PDF copies of booklets that accompany CDs when these are provided by the record label; in fact, I found booklets for every one of a quick sampling of ten or so recent Pentatone releases, meaning that the lack of a booklet in the current case is a Pentatone decision. I do wish that Pentatone had gone to the trouble of deleting unneeded pages from the booklet that accompanied that 2017 CD in order to give us something, but the lack of notes isn’t a dealbreaker.

Which brings us to a follow up question, not about Strauss, ASZ, Jurowski or the orchestra, but about the future of classical music recordings. When you think about it, the idea of releasing a given work, regardless of length, as one “thing” (download or stream) makes a lot of sense. Why couple, say, Strauss with Mahler other than to fill up a CD? OK, for recitals it might make sense, but couplings just for the sake of timing are, in the streaming/download world, a thoroughly obsolete notion. It’s a little premature to talk about this sort of thing now, as most labels are still issuing physical products and there still are music collectors buying CDs, not to mention LPs. But I wonder if, a few years from now, we’ll look back and laugh about the quaint idea of “filling a disk” with music just because the space was there to be used. I can only hope that when that day arrives, those often-excellent booklets will still accompany the music files.

And to return at long last to the release in question: if you are looking for a slightly different take on Strauss and ASZ, one that tightens up the sprawl, give this one a listen.