Strauss Metamorphosen for 23 Strings

[Andy Evans]

It seems to me this is a work which is quite hard to bring off perfectly. I listened to Szell live and Karajan, both of which are good but not great. The tempo seems to me important - fast enough so the melodies hang together and make sense, but slow enough to capture the mood of the music.

I liked Sinopoli quite a bit on YT but maybe there's better still?

What are your recommendations?

[HT]

Op maandag 21 mei 2018 11:37:54 UTC+2 schreef Andy Evans:

> It seems to me this is a work which is quite hard to bring off perfectly. I listened to Szell live and Karajan, both of which are good but not great. The tempo seems to me important - fast enough so the melodies hang together and make sense, but slow enough to capture the mood of the music.
>
> I liked Sinopoli quite a bit on YT but maybe there's better still?
>
> What are your recommendations?

Although I'm not a Capucon nor Strauss fan I like his live performance with colleagues like Ibragimova (no conductor) best - although it probably isn't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGg-RSTewUQ

It's also available on Medici.
Henk

[Kerrison]

> > I liked Sinopoli quite a bit on YT but maybe there's better still?
> >
> > What are your recommendations?
>
> Although I'm not a Capucon nor Strauss fan I like his live performance with colleagues like Ibragimova (no conductor) best - although it probably isn't.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGg-RSTewUQ
>
> It's also available on Medici.
> Henk

Stokowski gave the American broadcast premiere in 1947 with the CBS Orchestra strings and as it's on You Tube, presumably it's also been released on CD. According to a comment under the You Tube upload, there was just one rehearsal and Stokey never played it again. I seem to recall reading somewhere that B. H. Haggin dismissed the work as like "an old man mumbling into his beard" and listening to Stokowski's reading (how does his performance compare with any others?) I can well see Haggin's point ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dorq_NyfWgM

[Raymond Hall]

-It has been widely believed that Strauss wrote the work as a statement of mourning for
-Germany's destruction during the war, in particular as an elegy for the devastating
-bombing of Munich, especially places such as the Munich Opera House. The use of the term -"In Memoriam" may well echo his use of the same term in the Munich Memorial Waltz where
-it is clearly related to Munich. Although Strauss made no direct comment, Juergen May
-believes that Strauss composed here a musical monument for Culture in general, for "more -than three thousand years of humankind's cultural development".[10] A few days after the
-completion of Metamorphosen, he wrote in his private diary:

-"The most terrible period of human history is at an end, the twelve year reign of
-bestiality, ignorance and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which
-Germany's 2000 years of cultural evolution met its doom".[11]

Strauss's comments above are valid, excepting that as a country per se, Germany only came into existence at the beginning of the 19th century. Until then it was just a collection of boroughs, counties, principalities, dukedoms, all operating under the Holy Roman Church run from Vienna.

As a work, I've never been wholly impressed by Metamorphosen. Also it was recorded by Karajan two years after its completion in 1945. Supposedly it is a better performance than his two later recordings, but in fairly dire sound. Furtwangler also recorded it to some critical acclaim.

Ray Hall, Taree

[Andy Evans]

> As a work, I've never been wholly impressed by Metamorphosen. > Ray Hall, Taree

What I believe is that it can be conducted in such a way that it makes musical sense. But that it's particularly difficult to do this because as I was saying, if you speed it up the phrases make better sense and it hangs together, though you risk losing the intimacy and mood. If you slow it down it just falls apart. I find that Sinopoli gets this more right than later Karajan and live Szell, but I haven't heard many versions. What I will say is that each version is pretty different from the others. There's not an obvious solution as there is with many other works (Mendelssohn VC etc. etc...).

[Raymond Hall]

-I find that Sinopoli gets this more right than later Karajan and live Szell, but I
-haven't heard many versions. What I will say is that each version is pretty different
-from the others. There's not an obvious solution as there is with many other works
-(Mendelssohn -VC etc. etc...). 

You could try Klemps on EMI. Available very inexpensively on EMI at Amazon uk.

Ray Hall, Taree

[Alex Brown]

For me it works coherently as a piece and Karajan's recordings - and
Sinopoli's - are very fine & convincing in their own right. I suspect
the OP might find Kempe's excellent reading (Dresden/EMI) to their taste.

--
- Alex Brown

[Gerard]

Op maandag 21 mei 2018 20:09:23 UTC+2 schreef Alex Brown:

> - Alex Brown

Or the reading by Brown .... Iona (Chandos).
Or Järvi, or Klemperer.

[Bill Anderson]

Hi Ray

"Furtwangler also recorded it to some critical acclaim."

Technically, he did not record it - that is, no studio or commercial recording was made. The one performance that has been saved was a live reading with the BPO in late 1947. It was IIRC first issued by DGG in marking the 10th anniversary of F's passing.

Not in the best of sound - the tape overloads in several spots - and there is a fair amount of audience noise. But it is an intense, searing performance.

[cooper...@gmail.com]

May I have your list of works that are *easy* to "bring off perfectly"? :-) For Metamorphosen, try Grimal/Les Dissonances on Ambroisie. Powerful, beautifully played and recorded, and coupled with a riveting performance of the sextet version of Verklärte Nacht. I agree with Bill with respect to the 1947 Furtwängler Metamorphosen ("intense, searing"), but the recording quality is a drawback even for someone who has high tolerance for historical sound.

AC

[Tassilo]

I don’t know how well known this story is, but there’s reason for the number of string players necessary for the Metamorphosen. When Paul Sacher commissioned the Metamorphosen for his Basler Kammerorchester, Strauss asked how many strings there were in the ensemble. The answer was 23, and Strauss wrote for exactly the distribution available.

-dg

[Sol L. Siegel]

Andy Evans <performan...@gmail.com> wrote:

> What are your recommendations?

Kempe/Dresden. One can imagine that many of these players had to walk
past the rubble of the ruined city for years, and some may have even
survived the firebombing. In any event, it is one of the most potent
readings in the entire Kempe Strauss series.

- Sol L. Siegel, Philadelphia, PA USA

[Kerrison]

>
> > What are your recommendations?
>
> Kempe/Dresden. One can imagine that many of these players had to walk
> past the rubble of the ruined city for years, and some may have even
> survived the firebombing. In any event, it is one of the most potent
> readings in the entire Kempe Strauss series.
>
> - Sol L. Siegel, Philadelphia, PA USA

Kempe / Dresden Staatskapelle ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OkgIkDYV64

Karajan / Berlin Philharmonic ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiiaTxYdyWA

Sinopoli / Berlin Staatskapelle ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glMeg3hm_hg

Furtwangler / Berlin Philharmonic ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25Oo2rx8oX8

Ormandy / Philadelphia Strings ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Neis7nn7iwQ

Klemperer / Philharmonia Strings ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkbWcvEPeo8

Horenstein / French National Radio ...

ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wLAx83ef5g


Loads more by the likes of Rattle, Jansons, Dudamel, Barbirolli, Szell, Schmidt-Isserstedt, etc., plus several Septet versions. Whoever or whatever you want to hear, you'll pretty much find it on You Tube.

[Bob Harper]

B.H Haggin is fun to read, but he's frequently full of--well, you name
it. That's certainly true of his opinion re Metamorphosen, the greatest
work of Strauss's old age.

Recordings? In no particular order: Karajan, Kempe, Suitner, Furtwängler
(wretched sound but intense performance).

Bob Harper

[howie...@btinternet.com]

Klemperer for me in Metamorphosen.

[Bob Harper]

Others have mentioned Klemperer. Yes; don't know why I forgot to include it.

Bob Harper

[MELMOTH]

Ce cher mammifère du nom de Andy Evans - nous susurrait, le mardi
08/08/2017, dans nos oreilles grandes ouvertes mais un peu sales tout
de même, et dans le message <omc9bq...@hamster.local.invalid>, les
doux mélismes suivants :
> What are your recommendations?

*Rudolf KEMPE*...
*Otto KLEMPERER*

--
Car avec beaucoup de science, il y a beaucoup de chagrin ; et celui qui
accroît sa science accroît sa douleur.
[Ecclésiaste, 1-18]
MELMOTH - souffrant

[richard...@gmail.com]

For me, Klemperer and Barbirolli.

[craig...@gmail.com]

On the genesis of the work and a LOT more detail thereon, have a look at:
Jackson, Timothy (1992). "The Metamorphosis of the Metamorphosen: New Analytical and Source-Critical Discoveries", in Gilliam, Bryan (ed.) Richard Strauss: new perspectives on the composer and his work. Duke University Press, pp. 193-242. ISBN 978-0-8223-2114-9.

[craig...@gmail.com]

So now that the Verbier Capucon performance is no longer available on Medici's website, is it available in any other format or forum?

[Bob Harper]

On 5/4/19 6:52 PM, craig...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, May 21, 2018 at 9:37:54 PM UTC+12, Andy Evans wrote:

A sleeper: Suitner/SD.

https://www.amazon.com/Hindemith-Symphonic-Metamorphosis-Metamorphosen-Staatskapelle/dp/B004ZFU72M/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=metamorphosen+suitner&qid=1557112090&s=gateway&sr=8-1

First rate in every respect.

Bob Harper