Phils 8: R. Strauss, Bruch, Tanaka

Strauss: Don Juan and Excerpts from Der Rosenkavalier
Rudolf Kempe, Dresden State Orchestra (Staatskapelle)
EMI

In both of these works, Kempe’s ability to draw out harmonies and mood changes by means of shifting instrumentation and tone colors is simply incomparable. So is his gift at weaving long seamless passages into ecstatic lyricism. Yes, the playing of this Rolls Royce of an orchestra is the epitome of elegant, but, beyond that, Kempe makes Don Juan an excited, romping, pirouetting seducer one moment and a sumptuously romantic lover the next.

Excerpts from Der Rosenkavalier come in countless versions running from 8 to 23 minutes. Kempe here uses his own 18-minute arrangement of waltzes from the opera; it’s a rondo in which each waltz reverts back to the grandest of them all. Kempe’s phrasing, energy, flow, and rhythmic “Viennese waltz hitch” make this superbly engineered recording utterly exhilarating.

WebTips: Both of these recordings are available on one EMI 2-CD album, but you can’t tell that by its cover. It says, “Richard Strauss: Tone Poems—Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Juan, Ein Heldenleben, Till Eulenspiegels, Death and Transfiguration,” but does not list on the cover Der Rosenkavalier Waltzes that are also on the album. Both works are also paired on a single CD in EMI’s “Great Recordings of the Century” series, but that release I couldn’t find online.


Bruch: Scottish Fantasy
Jascha Heifetz; Malcolm Sargent, New Symphony Orchestra of London
RCA

No other recording comes even close to matching this legendary performance. Not only is Heifetz in supremely lyrical form, but Sargent unearths all of Bruch’s rich orchestral detail in what is perhaps Heifetz’s most splendidly engineered recording.

WebTips: This 1961 stereo recording has been re-released countless times, always paired with the same terrific recordings of Bruch’s Concerto No. 1 and Vieuxtemps’ Concerto No. 5. It’s also available as part of a 6-CD box set called “Heifetz: The Concerto Collection” that might still be available on Amazon for less than $25—a steal of a price for one great recording after another (not all, but most).


Tanaka: Rose Absolute
No recordings are available.