Ein Heldenleben and Don Quixote

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12300 in Digital Music Album
• Published on: 2006-11-21
• Released on: 2006-11-21
• Running time: 0 seconds

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Customer Reviews

Two unique recordings restored to the catalog
Beecham was associated with Strauss's music for many decades, having conducted Ein Heldenleben first in 1910. In the aftermath of World War II he invited the very old composer to London as a gesture of musical reconciliation. Out of this Strauss Festival came two unique recordings, a famous Ein Heldenleben and somewhat less renowned Don Quixote. It's a great joy to find the latter on this twofer, in really excellent mono sound. Together, Tortelier and Beecham give us a fleet, puckish account that's quite unique. It's as light as Mozart, as whimsical as Mendelssohn's fairy music from A Midsummer Night's Dream. I can't imagine anyone not being instantly infatuated. We haven't had such a mercurial recording in the sixty years since.

EMI doesn't couple it with the 1947 Heldenleben, however, but Beecham's remake in stereo from 1958. On its release, old-timers grumbled that it wasn't as lithe and swift as the first version, but in this case Beecham had no competition but himself. On its own terms, this fresh, buoyant reading is almost as revelatory as the Quixote and much better recorded, of course. Again I can't imagine anyone not falling instantly in love with it. Sad as the decline of the classical-music CD may be, at least we get to luxuriate in hundreds of reissues a year, including this superlative one.

The riches don't stop there, however. Beecham set down a suite from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme at those same sessions in 1947, and here it is, restored with its mate. The mono sound is fine, and Beecham's touch is feather-weight and elegant. Finally there is a mid-Sixties Metamorphosen from Barbirolli and the New Philharmonia, which once came coupled with Schoenberg's Pelleas and Melisande, both quite unexpected from this conductor. It's a fine recording, more soft-grained and romantically free than the masterful ones from Karajan, but very listenable and typically heartfelt.

Finally, the Beecham recording is back!
When I was at university, I studied under Geoffrey Gilbert, the first flautist of the RPO under Beecham, and I first heard this recording when it appeared on vinyl on the Seraphim label, during the time I studied with him. Mr Gilbert told me an interesting story. He said that this recording was actually a rehearsal, prepatory to a recording, and that Sir Thomas had taken the tapes home to review and prepare for the recording sessions. It seems that before the recording could be finished, he died! Well, if that's true this is an amazing recording. It is, to my ear, the most expansive, opulent recording of Strauss ever made. Sir Thomas lets the horn section loose on the big lines and the result is almost orgasmic! Wave upon wave of huge sound and emotion are loosed upon the listener and it sometimes is almost unbearable! If you've never heard Heldenleben, listen to this one and you'll never go to another.