Strauss: The Complete Songs, Vol. 2

（不足10人评分）

185人收藏

7条评论

共23首歌曲

在网易云音乐打开

艺人: Richard Strauss
语种: 德语
厂牌: Hyperion Records
发行时间: 2007年05月01日
专辑类别: 录音室专辑

专辑介绍

Recording details: August 2006

All Saints' Church, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom

Produced by Mark Brown

Engineered by Julian Millard

Strauss’s Drei Lieder der Ophelia have an inauspicious genesis. They were dashed off (together with three settings from Goethe’s Bücher des Unmuts—The Books of Bad Temper) in the throes of a legal battle with his publisher. Clearly Strauss hoped that three mad songs and three bad-tempered songs would represent a suitably poisoned chalice for his arch-enemy. But in the case of the three mad songs, they have proved highly effective in the concert hall, especially when performed by a great singing actress such as Anne Schwanewilms, whose dramatic and vocal gifts are highlighted in this, the second volume of the complete Strauss Lieder.

The selection begins, like Volume One, in the familiar territory of Opus 10, and proceeds chronologically through to the Ophelia-Lieder, on the way taking in many songs that will be less well known—if they are known at all. Highlights among them should certainly be the impassioned and dramatic O wärst du mein!, the delightful miniatures of Weißer Jasmin and Wiegenliedchen, the two Alsatian folksongs, and not least the remarkable Blindenklage.

Anne Schwanewilms is one of the greatest Strauss sopranos on the opera stage today, performing many major roles under Simon Rattle, Colin Davis, Andrew Davis, Semyon Bychkov and Mark Elder. This is her debut recording for Hyperion.

There can be few musical masterpieces, even minor ones, that owe their origin to a publishing dispute, but Strauss’s Drei Lieder der Ophelia can rightfully claim that distinction. The story is connected with, and partly explains, the lengthy hiatus in his song-writing between 1906 and 1918. These were busy years in the theatre for Strauss: he produced Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos and Die Frau ohne Schatten. But they were also years during which Strauss became an active campaigner for composers’ rights, especially of course his own.

During the nineteenth century, composers were expected on publication to surrender almost all rights to their music, a situation that became increasingly irksome to Strauss as his fame increased. In 1898 he founded, with two partners, the Society of German composers, to protect and further composers’ rights, and it became the precursor of similar societies all over the world. In time the publishers attempted to hit back by establishing a rival organization, and it so happens that one of their leading members was Bote & Bock, the publishers of the Sinfonia Domestica, to whom Strauss had also assigned the Opus 56 songs, published in 1906. Unfortunately, in the contract for Opus 56, he had unwisely allowed a clause to be included giving Bote & Bock the rights to his next group of songs whenever they might be composed.

Strauss was understandably reluctant to hand over anything of worth, and procrastinated as long as he could. Finally in 1918, threatened with legal action by Bote & Bock, he tried to fob them off with Krämerspiegel, a satirical song cycle scurrilously lampooning the publishing profession. When this ruse failed, he hastily composed three Ophelia songs and three settings of poems from Goethe’s Buch des Unmuts (The ‘Book of Bad Temper’), which were published together as Opus 67. Clearly Strauss hoped that three mad songs and three bad-tempered songs would represent a suitably poisoned chalice for his arch-enemy. But in the case of the three mad songs, they have proved highly effective in the concert hall, especially when performed by a great singing actress such as Anne Schwanewilms, whose dramatic and vocal gifts are highlighted in this, the second volume of the complete Strauss Lieder.

The selection begins, like the first volume, in the familiar territory of Opus 10, and proceeds chronologically through to the Ophelia-Lieder, on the way taking in many songs that will be less well known, if known at all. Highlights among them should certainly be the impassioned and dramatic O wärst du mein!, the delightful miniatures of Weißer Jasmin and Wiegenliedchen, the two Alsatian folk songs, and not least the remarkable Blindenklage.

Strauss: The Complete Songs, Vol. 2

专辑介绍

最新简评（共7条）