Composer: Richard Strauss
Performer: James Ehnes, Daniel Müller-Schott
Orchestra: Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Sir Andrew Davis
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: ABC
Catalogue: ABC4817471
Release: 2019
Size: 330 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 8
01. 1. Allegro
02. 2. Lento ma non troppo
03. 3. Rondo: Presto
Don Quixote, Op. 35
04. 1. Introduction: Don Quixote Loses His Sanity after Reading Novels about Knights, and Decides to Become a Knight-Errant
05. 2. Theme: Don Quixote, Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance
06. 3. Sancho Panza
07. 4. Variation I: Adventure at the Windmills
08. 5. Variation II: Kriegerisch
09. 6. Variation III: Dialogue between Knight and Squire
10. 7. Variation IV: Unhappy Adventure with a Procession of Pilgrims
11. 8. Variation V: The Knight’s Vigil
12. 9. Variation VI: Meeting with Dulcinea
13. 10. Variation VII: The Ride through the Air
14. 11. Variation VIII: The Unhappy Voyage in the Enchanted Boat
15. 12. Variation IX: Battle with the Magicians
16. 13. Variation X: Duel with the Knight of the Bright Moon
17. 14. Finale: Coming to His Senses Again
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and their Chief Conductor Sir Andrew Davis continue their acclaimed survey of the orchestral music of Richard Strauss, with this latest volume featuring three world-class soloists James Ehnes, Daniel Müller-Schott and Christopher Moore performing two of his finest early works: the Violin Concerto, and the tone poem Don Quixote. Performed here by dual Grammy Award-winning Canadian violinist James Ehnes, Strauss’s Violin Concerto is a beautiful and inventive work, remarkably mature considering Strauss wrote it when he was still a teenager. Strangely seldom performed today, it is full of melody and of virtuoso fireworks, very much of its Romantic time but hinting at the recent Classical masters Beethoven and Mozart. Don Quixote is inspired by Cervantes’s iconic novel, and Strauss demonstrates every bit of his flair for the dramatic (which would be fully realised in his great operas Der Rosenkavalier, Elektra, Die Frau ohne Schatten and Salome). With Daniel Müller-Schott’s cello representing the famous man of La Mancha, and Christopher Moore’s viola cast as his trusty sidekick Sancho Panza, Strauss takes us on an incredible journey into the mind of this deluded nobleman, and across the rustic landscape of the Don’s native Spain. The MSO’s Strauss series was launched in 2014 with a major European tour including the BBC Proms and the Concertgebouw, and has so far included Four Last Songs with Erin Wall, Ein Heldenleben, Four Symphonic Interludes, Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks and An Alpine Symphony. The recordings have won significant acclaim from the international press, with BBC Music Magazine describing Also sprach Zarathustra as ‘a benchmark recording’.