Andris Nelsons, Yo-Yo Ma, Yuja Wang, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig & Boston Symphony Orchestra Richard Strauss: Orchestral Works - The Strauss Project Box Set (7 UHQCD)

Two world-class orchestras, a visionary conductor and one of the most important composers in music history: The new album and tour project by Andris Nelsons, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra is a musical meeting of superlatives. With the participation of Yuja Wang (burlesque) and Yo Yo Ma (Don Quixote), the two orchestras and their joint chief conductor present all the great symphonic works of Richard Strauss in one album and on tour. Each of the orchestras designed three of the CDs; on the seventh they can be heard not only alternately, but even together with the Festive Prelude.
Andris Nelsons: "This joint Strauss project is a matter close to my heart... The partnership between the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Gewandhaus Orchestra is a dream come true for me."
"The partnership between the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Gewandhaus Orchestra is a matter close to my heart. I am extraordinarily grateful that both orchestras, each with its unique tradition and sound culture, are so committed to a mutual exchange. This connection, which can now be described as friendship, is unique in the music world. The complementary recording and performance of the orchestral works of Richard Strauss is a dream come true for me.« (Andris Nelsons)
In fact, the alliance initiated by Andris Nelsons, which has closely linked his orchestras in Boston and Leipzig since 2018, is without precedent in the international orchestral landscape. It ranges from regular exchange of musicians lasting several months to joint composition commissions and coordinated programming – such as an annual Leipzig Week in Boston and a Boston Week in Leipzig – to reciprocal or jointly planned guest concerts and tour projects.
The basis for transatlantic exchange is an astonishingly rich past, which shaped the first decades of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), which was founded in 1881. For example, the Second Gewandhaus, which was destroyed in the Second World War, was the inspiration for the construction of Boston's Symphony Hall with its phenomenal acoustics. Several music directors of the BSO studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, were members of the Gewandhaus Orchestra or – like Arthur Nikisch and today Andris Nelsons – presided over both orchestras as chiefs.
The partnership brings these lines of connection back together in the 21st century as an innovative revival of a shared past. A milestone for the alliance is the development and recording of the orchestral works of Richard Strauss – a jointly conceived retrospective that includes not only tone poems but also concertante works and orchestral opera excerpts. "Strauss's music offers a wealth of moods and timbres, is full of emotionality, orchestral brilliance and often humorous," says Andris Nelsons. "Both orchestras can bring their very own qualities to the table here, because they each have a unique tradition and fantastic sound culture. Their special qualities are rooted in the different course of their long and rich history.
The transparency of the Gewandhaus Orchestra can be traced back to Bach and Mendelssohn, for example, while in the BSO it results strongly from French influences." The prelude to this universal Strauss undertaking, which sheds light on the composer from two historically grown perspectives, was a guest performance by the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Boston in November 2019, during which both orchestras performed the Festive Prelude in a united sound apparatus. This single joint recording of the cycle (with organist Olivier Latry) forms the heart of this extraordinary project.
Richard Strauss, not only a leading composer but also a conductor of his era, maintained personal contacts with both orchestras. Although his music has not been at the centre of the historical development of the orchestras, the orchestras in Boston and Leipzig have repeatedly set standards with Strauss performances and recordings in the pastZt. Strauss conducted the Boston orchestra, which took on a French-Russian character in the 20th century and enriched the orchestral repertoire with numerous world premieres of classical modernism, only once: in a Pension Fund Concert on April 19, 1904, which took place as part of his first extensive North American tour.
In addition to works by Beethoven and Wagner, he also conducted his own compositions in Boston: Don Juan, Don Quixote and the orchestral "Love Scene" from the opera Feuersnot. He enthusiastically reported back home: "The Boston Orchestra is wonderful, sound, technology of a perfection that I have hardly ever met." As early as 1888, Wilhelm Gericke, the second Music Director of the BSO, had presented a work by Strauss in Boston for the first time with Aus Italien. Later, it was Pierre Monteux and finally above all Erich Leinsdorf and Seiji Ozawa who gave special importance to Strauss's oeuvre in their Boston programs, including operas – in part or in full.
During Seiji Ozawa's long tenure (1973–2002), he made famous recordings of individual tone poems (Also sprach Zarathustra, Ein Heldenleben) as well as a complete recording of the opera Elektra (all for Philips Classics). Strauss's path to the podium of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, founded in 1781, which already had a singular concert tradition with its household gods Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms and Bruckner, proved somewhat more difficult. In Leipzig, for example, Strauss initially worked primarily with competing orchestras before the doors of the Gewandhaus opened to him. Nevertheless, the Strauss history of the Gewandhaus Orchestra is also remarkable: in 1887 the 23-year-old made his debut at the Gewandhaus podium with his Symphony in F minor, and a little later he found an ardent advocate in Gewandhaus Kapellmeister Arthur Nikisch, who regularly programmed his works, appointed Strauss as the orchestra's first regular guest conductor in 1907 and cyclically performed all nine of Strauss's tone poems in his penultimate season in 1920/21.
At Leipzig's Neues Theater, the Gewandhaus Orchestra often played many of Strauss's opera scores immediately after the Dresden premieres, and from 1915 Strauss personally conducted performances of Salome, Elektra or – during his last visit to Leipzig in 1934 – Arabella. A Strauss premiere can also be found in the annals of Gewandhaus history: in 1932, Gewandhaus Kapellmeister Bruno Walter premiered the orchestral suite from the ballet Schlagobers in the Second Gewandhaus. A year later, he had to leave Leipzig because of his Jewish origins, and in the same year Strauss became president of the Nazi Reich Chamber of Music – a step that still clings to his biography as a blemish today.
Strauss conducted a total of five concerts and eight opera performances with the Gewandhaus Orchestra. The cyclical performance of the Strauss orchestral works by Arthur Nikisch (who performed surprisingly few of the composer's works in Boston) was later followed up by the Gewandhaus Kapellmeister Kurt Masur and Riccardo Chailly with comparable retrospectives. During his important and politically turbulent tenure (1970–1996), Masur in particular made a number of Strauss reference recordings, above all the Four Last Songs and a complete recording of thehe Ariadne auf Naxos, both with Jessye Norman (Philips Classics).
These historical references also played a role in the distribution of the repertoire between the two orchestras. Andris Nelsons: "The recording of Don Quixote with the Boston musicians and the incomparable Yo-Yo Ma is a tribute to Strauss's own performance of the work in Boston, as is the ›Love Scene‹ from the opera Feuersnot. Strauss, on the other hand, premiered the Symphonia Domestica in New York in 1904 as part of his US tour. In the Leipzig recordings, ›Salome's Dance‹ and the Rosenkavalier Suite refer to the operatic tradition of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the burlesque, for which Yuja Wang is an ideal cast, to the youthful exuberance of the young Strauss, who had yet to gain a foothold in Leipzig, and the Schlagoberswalzer to the Leipzig premiere of the orchestral suite.«
The late Metamorphoses were also recorded with the strings of the Gewandhaus Orchestra – the grief expressed in them over the downfall of an entire cultural epoch, which revealed itself to Strauss at the end of the Second World War in the destruction of many important cultural sites, also included the second Gewandhaus building. An early recording of the Gewandhaus Orchestra had taken place here in 1940, that of the Festive Prelude under the direction of Gewandhaus Kapellmeister Hermann Abendroth – and thus the work with which, some eighty years later and after the fall of the Iron Curtain, which separated Boston and Leipzig from each other in an unreachable way, the starting signal was given for this unique alliance project.
"Andris Nelsons and his two orchestras present a valuable Strauss compilation.« Classical
"Nelsons, who had already proven his affinity for this music in Birmingham with three Strauss albums, relies on a rich, rich orchestral sound that corresponds to his emphatic approach to this music. Nelsons doesn't let anything burn, he lets the music flow and flow, he knows his way around increases and the staggering of large ensembles.« (concerti.(de)

Selections:

Disc 1
An Alpine Symphony, Op.64, TrV 233
1. Night: Lento
2. Sunrise: Fixed time measure, moderately slow
3. The increase: Very lively and energetic
4. Entry into the forest
5. Hike next to the stream: Gradually moving
6. At the waterfall: Very lively
7. Appearance
8. On flowery meadows: Very lively
9. On the alpine pasture: Moderately fast
10. Through thickets and undergrowth on wrong paths
11. On the glacier: Fixed, very lively measure of time (un poco maestoso)
12. Dangerous moments: A tempo, livelier than before
13. At the summit
14. Vision: Firm and held
15. Mists rise: Slightly less wide
16. The sun is gradually darkening
17. Elegy: Moderato espressivo
18. Silence before the storm: Tranquillo
19. Thunderstorm and storm, descent: Fast and fierce
20. Sunset: Slightly wider
21. Conclusion: Slightly wide and worn
22. Night
23. Symphonic Fantasy from "The Woman Without a Shadow", TrV 234a
Disc 2
Don Quixote, TrV 184 (op.35)
1. Introduction: Moderate measure of time
2. Theme: Moderate. The Knight of the Sorrowful Form
3. Maggiore: Sancho Panza
4. Variation I: Leisurely The adventure with the windmills
5. Variation II: Warlike. The fight against the herd of mutton
6. Variation III: Moderate measure of time. Conversations between knight and squire
7. Variation IV: Slightly wider. The adventure with the procession of penitents
8. Variation V: Very slowly. Don Quixote's Armoury and Outpourings of the Heart
9. Variation VI: Fast. The Enchanted Dulzinea
10. Variation VII: A little quieter than before. The ride through the air
11. Variation VIII: The ride on the enchanted Nachen
12. Variation IX: Fast and stormy. The fight against the supposed sorcerers
13. Variation X: Much wider. Duel with the Knight of the Bright Moon – Return of the defeated Don Quixote
14. Final. Very quiet. Don Quixote's death
Four symphonic interludes from Intermezzo, TrV 246a
15. Travel fever and Waltz Scene: Vivid
16. Reverie by the fireplace: Quietly floating
17. At the gaming table: Very leisurely
18. Happy resolution: Very lively and cheerful
CD 3
Death and Transfiguration, TrV 158 (op.24)
1. Largo
2. Allegro molto agitato
3. Meno mosso, ma sempre alla breve
4. Moderato
Symphonia Domestica, TrV 209 (op.53)
5. Topic I: Moving
6. Theme II: Very lively
7. Theme III: Calm
8. Scherzo: Awake
9. Lullaby: Moderately slow
10. Adagio: Slow
11. Final: Very lively
CD 4
Ein Heldenleben, TrV 190 (op.40)
1. The hero: Vividly moved
2. The hero's adversary: Slightly slower
3. The hero's companion: Vividly moved
4. The hero Walstatt: Vivid
5. The hero's works of peace: With great momentum and enthusiasm
6. The hero's escape from the world and completion: Moderately slow
Macbeth, TrV 163 (op.23)
7. Allegro, un poco maestoso – Presto
8. Moderato maestoso
9. Allegro, Un poco maestoso
CD 5
Also sprach Zarathustra, TrV 176 (op.30)
1. Introduction: Very wide
2. From the backworlders: Less wide – Moderately slow, with devotion
3. Of the great longing: Moving
4. Of pleasures and passions: Moved
5. The Funeral Song: A little quieter
6. From science: Very slow – Fast – Very slow
7. The convalescent: Energetic – More and more moving – Very fast
8. The Dance Song
9. The Nightwalker Song
From Italy, TrV 147 (op.16)
10. On the Campagna: Andante, molto tranquillo
11. In Rome's Ruins: Allegro molto con brio
12. On the beach of Sorrento: Andantino – Più mosso – Tempo I
13. Neapolitan folk life: Finale. Allegro molto – Presto. del Tempo I
CD 6
1. Don Juan, TrV 156 Op.20 – Allegro molto con brio
2. Burlesque in D minor for piano and orchestra, TrV 145 – Allegro vivace
Salome Op.54
3. Dance of the Seven Veils
Metamorphoses, TrV 290
4. Adagio, ma non troppo
5. Agitato – Più allegro
6. Adagio, tempo primo – Molto lento
CD 7
1. Festive Prelude for Organ and Orchestra, TrV 229 Festively moving – Very lively – Tempo I – Slightly livelier than at the beginning – Very fast
Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, TrV 171 (op. 28)
2. Introducing the Rogue
3. Till's Pranks
4. Till's Trial
5. Sentence and Execution
6. Epilogue
Fire Emergency
7. Love Scene – Very Quiet – Moving
Der Rosenkavalier – Concert Suite for Orchestra, TrV 227d
8. Con moto agitato
9. Allegro molto
10. Tempo di Valse, assai comodo da primo
11. Moderato molto sostenuto
12. Quick Waltz: Molto con moto
Whipped cream Suite, TrV 243a
13. Schlagoberswalzer from whipped cream Starting a little hesitantly – Fast waltz tempo – Very lively