Release Date: 12 January 2000
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 4891030501829
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: STRAUSS, R.
Description
Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949)Also sprach Zarathustra, Opus 30 Von den Hinterweltlern (Of theAfterworldsmen) Von der grossen Sehnsucht (Of the GreatLonging) Von den Freuden und Leidenschaften (OfJoys and Passions) Das Grablied (The Funeral Song) Von den Wissenschaften (Of Science) Der Genesende (The Convalescent) Das Nachtlied (The Night Song) Das Nachtwanderlied (The Night-wanderer'sSong)Dance of Salome Waltz Sequence from Der RosenkavalierWriting in 1857, seven years before thebirth of Richard Strauss, the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick had poured scornon the new form of music pioneered by Liszt, the symphonic poem, a creationwith "intelligence, poetry and imagery in abundance, but no musicalessence". Programme music has always had its detractors, but Hanslick'sobjections were primarily towards what he saw as the attempted inclusion ofunmusical "meaning" in a work, and that of such a vast kind that thevery effort to convey it in contemporary musical terms seemed an act ofimpudent effrontery.Richard Strauss was an early convert tothe views of Liszt and Wagner, in spite of his father's prohibitions. Hemaintained that there was no valid distinction to be made between programmemusic and abstract music, the best forms being the most expressive. He saw nolimit to what could be expressed, either in outward detail or in subtlerpsychological terms.Born in Munich in 1864, the son of aleading horn-player and his second wife, the daughter of a well-to-do brewingfamily, Strauss enjoyed a comfortable enough childhood and a good general andmusical education. He followed this with an early career as a conductor, atfirst under Hans von B??low at Meiningen and later in Munich, in Berlin and inextensive tours abroad. His compositions, which had provided him with hisintroduction to Meiningen, explored, once he had accepted the influence ofWagner, the symphonic poem, a form of which he made much use between Don Juan,which he finished in 1889, and Ein Heldenleben, which he completed in 1898. Thenew century brought the period of his great operas, until 1929 in collaborationwith the writer Hugo von Hoffmansthal, and a reputation that survived thepolitical difficulties he encountered through his supposed acquiescence in theNational Socialist regime in Germany. After 1945 he took refuge in Switzerlanduntil 1949, when he was able to return home to his villa atGarmisch-Partenkirchen, where he died four months later.Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus spokeZarathustra), a tone poem after Friedrich Nietzsche, was written in 1896,during the period Strauss spent as conductor at the opera in his native city ofMunich. It is based on the rhapsodic expression of Nietzsche's highly personalphilosophy, finally published in 1892, in which Christian virtues are rejectedin favour of the power of the Superman (?£bermensch), a concept that with hisnotions of die blonde Bestie, Herrenmoral and Christian Sklavenmoral, proveduseful to later political extremists.Zarathustra, a mouthpiece for Niet
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
The Brahms Trio
Roman Fediurko
London Symphony Orchestra; Rafael Sanz-Espert
