RICHARD STRAUSS

 

Josephs Legende

Ivan Fischer & Budapest Festival / Orche

 

The Ballets Russes had been the talk of the artistic world since the Paris performances of 1909, and Richard Strauss and his librettist Hugo van Hoffmannsthal saw one of their performances in Berlin in 1912. With his friend, Count Harry Kessler, Hoffmannsthal worked out a scenario for a ballet based on the Old Testament figure of the young Joseph and his attempted seduction by Potifar’s wife.

 

Hoffmansthal sold his idea to Diaghilev; Richard Strauss was to compose the music, and he delivered his massive score in Berlin in February 1914. Hoffmannsthal and Kessler had envisioned a mythological, spiritual drama, based on the Bible and filled with abstraction and mystery. But Strauss, notoriously repelled by anything religious, found himself less and less comfortable with this concept, the more he composed. He jettisoned most of the mythical and archaic content, and the result is a highly practical concert work, which stands on its own and can be understood on its own terms because of the power of the music and the visual language of the dance. For his Josephs Legende, Strauss called on an orchestra which was

gigantic even by his own standards; particularly noteworthy is the presence of a contrabass clarinet.

Digipack / booklet includes complete plot text.

 

“The score is frighteningly difficult. With the Budapest Festival Orchestra we took many long, painstaking rehearsals and arranged many concerts to overcome the enormous difficulties of recording this music. We believe that Josephs Legende is a beautiful, rich, especially lyrical work that deserves to be accepted among Richard Strauss' best compositions. I am very grateful to all musicians who took part in this extremely demanding undertaking for their devotion and dedicated playing.”

Iván Fischer

 

 

Disc of the Week: Richard Strauss: Joseph's Legende, Op 63

An eagerly awaited recording from Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra of a major score written for Dhiagilev's Ballets Russes on the eve of the First World War.

 

CD OF THE MONTH - Gramophone

Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra give a magnificent account of the work, readily going over the sensual top when Strauss demands, but with Fischer ensuring that Strauss's underlying lyrical flow moves seamlessly but erotically onwards to the final climax. This is surely a work for sumptuous surround sound, which is exactly what the Channel team provide, and very impressively, too.

 

 

Some quotes from the press:

 

There is clearly something special happening with this team. This is their second Cd of the Month in the past year.

Gramophone

 

...Phenomenally engineered, beautiful, savage and very, very erotic, it's one of Fischer's finest achievements, and sets new interpretative standards for the work itself. 5/5

The Guardian

 

Channel Classics SACD CCSSA24507