Search - Richard [1] Strauss, Franz Welser-Möst, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester :: Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie

A very musical interpretation, with a wonderful youth orches

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 11/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What is immediately apparent about Welser-Most's live performance of the Alpine Symphony is that he avoids all bombast and over-inflation. Record companies invariably use this massive tone poem from 1911, the last written by Strauss, as a sonic blockbuster. But instead of making it sound like second cousin to Also Sprach Zarathustra, Welser-Most makes it sound like first cousin to Rosenkavalier: textures are light and refined, phrasing emphasizes poise and finesse. Tempos are often brisk, and there is lots of colorful scene painting in the storm section near the end. Nobody's trudging up this mountain. They scamper as restlessly as Till Eulenspiegel until the grandeur fills them with awe.



Taking a refined approach may seem like underplaying, but after the first four minutes or so, one is swept away by Welser-Most's conducting. This is the most dramatically alive Alpine Symphony since Karajan's classic account from the early Eighties. The orchestra is actually not professional, although it plays with considerable virtuosity. The Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra was founded in 1986 by Claudio Abbado to serve as a showcase for leading music students from all over Europe (they are as shining as the Deutsche Junge Philharmonie, which is similarly constituted.)



All in all, this CD gave me a great deal of musical pleasure, although EMI's sound is a bit constricted--it doesn't give us the impression of a sweeping mountain landscape the way Telarc did for Previn and the Vienna Phil.--in other ways the sonics are very clear and detailed. Incidentally, I find myself admiring Welser-Most more and more. With luck he will be making many more recordings at this high level of musicality."

The Record to Make "Frankly Worse-than-Most" Haters Reconsid

J. F. Laurson | Washington, DC United States | 11/17/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The 1-star rating (below) for this disc, based on a technical flaw, unduly skews the impression the average rating of 3 stars leaves: This isn't another Blah-Welser-Most recording, this is _not_ water on the mills of those who say he can't rise beyond surface sheen and great sound but ultimately shallow musical or emotional content. This is a terrific recording. And it might well be the recording (the engineers) that contributed in great part to why it is so good: Rarely, nay, never have I heard the Alpine Symphony in such resplendent sound... although a regular Red-Books CD, it's like panoramic 3D sound, gripping like a movie score. Listen to it, and you know where John Williams steals his ideas before he mediocrisizes them. This CD is like going to a movie about the Alps. Very remarkable, indeed."