Richard Strauss - Ariadne auf Naxos; Le bourgeois gentilhomme (JoAnn Falletta)

Information

Composer: Richard Strauss

• (01-09) Le bourgeois gentilhomme Suite, Op. 60
• (10-16) Ariadne auf Naxos, symphony-suite (arr. D. Wilson Ochoa)

Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
JoAnn Falletta, conductor

Date: 2017
Label: Naxos
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.573460

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Review

I sure hope the folks in Buffalo know what a prize they have in JoAnn Falletta. Her Naxos discography has few peers in terms of imaginative programming and quality of results. The city couldn’t ask for a more positive or alluring cultural calling card, and the present release offers a case in point. There have been many fine recordings of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, but this one stands with the best: for clarity, elegance, distinguished solo work (superb oboe, William Preucil’s solo violin), you name it. Although scored for a chamber orchestra, it’s amazing how congested and fussy so many performances sound. Not here. Just listen to the opening processional of “The Dinner,” with its bold horns and transparent textures. Great stuff.

However, the real item of interest is the “Symphony-Suite” arranged by D. Wilson Ochoa from Ariadne auf Naxos, the original companion work to Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Arranging suites from Strauss’ operas is a trend that can only be encouraged. Strauss did it himself, of course, but mostly without much enthusiasm or imagination. So here’s a case where the intervention of more caring hands is clearly called for.

This suite, forty minutes in all, contains three chunks from the prologue and four from the opera itself. It is gorgeous. Even those who know the opera well may be surprised at how much lovely material slips by without notice in stage performances, such as the “Intermezzo” music on the second to last track here (sound clip). You do get some of the more famous bits (“Es gibt ein Reich,” for example, and the closing scene), but it really is astonishing how much care Strauss lavished on sections that flit by as mere accompaniment–never mind the thematic interest that they contain. Here, thanks to Falletta and the folks in Buffalo, in this luminously played and recorded performance, we can savor them afresh. So what are you waiting for? Go for it.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday

More reviews:
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/strauss-ariadne-auf-naxos-symphony-suite
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Apr/Strauss_gentilhomme_8573460.htm
https://www.allmusic.com/album/richard-strauss-ariadne-auf-naxos-symphony-suite-le-bourgeois-gentilhomme-suite-mw0003011532
https://www.naxos.com/reviews/reviewslist.asp?catalogueid=8.573460&languageid=EN#225305
https://www.amazon.com/Richard-Strauss-Ariadne-auf-Naxos/dp/B01N6HUDJ9

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Richard Strauss (11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, lieder, tone poems and other orchestral works. Strauss was also a prominent conductor throughout Germany and Austria, enjoying quasi-celebrity status as his compositions became standards of orchestral and operatic repertoire. Strauss made a large number of recordings, both of his own music as well as music by German and Austrian composers. Along with Gustav Mahler, Strauss represents the late flowering of German Romanticism after Richard Wagner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Strauss

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JoAnn Falletta (born February 27, 1954 in New York) is an American classical musician and orchestral conductor best known as music directors of the Virginia Symphony (since 1991) and Buffalo Philharmonic orchestras (since 1999). She has also served as music director of the Long Beach Symphony and of the Women's Philharmonic Orchestra (San Francisco). Falletta has recorded over 70 albums. In 2011 she was appointed artistic director of the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra. Outside of the USA, Falletta was the 12th principal conductor of the Ulster Orchestra (2011-2014).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JoAnn_Falletta

http://www.joannfalletta.com/

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