Franz Lehár - Symphonic Works (Klauspeter Seibel)

Information

Composer: Franz Lehár

• (01) Tatjana (Opera) (excerpts)
• (05) Fieber (Fever), Tone Poem for Tenor and Orchestra
• (06) Il Guado, Symphonc Poem for Piano and Orchestra
• (07) Concertino for Violin and Orchestra
• (08) Eine Vision. Meine Jugendzeit (Concert Overture)
• (09) Donaulegenden ('An der grauen Donau'), Waltz

Robert Gambill, tenor
Volker Banfield, piano
Latica Honda-Rosenberg, violin

NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
Klauspeter Seibel, conductor

Date: 1997
Label: cpo

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Review

This splendidly produced collection will surprise and, I believe, delight. Lehar’s mastery of the orchestra has never been in doubt; and here is further evidence of his technical accomplishment. Such touches of the operetta composer as are here are of the more ambitious operetta scores such as Zigeunerliebe. More often it is Wagner, Richard Strauss and Korngold who come to mind. Throughout, the music is tastefully and evocatively written, and with a supreme confidence in the handling of a large orchestra. Tatjana was an early operatic attempt of which Lehar was especially fond, and its preludes and dances capture the starkness of its Siberian setting. Il guado (“The ford”) and the concert overture Eine Vision are works from the Lustige Witwe years, when Lehar was still seeking to determine in which direction his future lay. The former is a symphonic poem with some attractively rippling writing for the piano, the latter a recollection of the Bohemian countryside of his youth. The elegant Concertino for violin and orchestra, which has been recorded previously, is a student work that demonstrates his affection for his own instrument. Fieber is the starkest piece in the collection – a bitter First World War portrayal of a soldier in the throes of a deadly fever. Donaulegenden gives glimpses of the familiar waltz-time Lehar, but a Lehar looking back sadly at a bygone age. What other operetta or waltz composer could have written music as powerful, gripping and spine-tingling as this? Do try it!

-- Andrew Lamb, Gramophone

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Franz Lehár (30 April 1870 – 24 October 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. Lehár studied violin at the Prague Conservatory, where his violin teacher was Antonín Bennewitz, and was largely self-taught as a composer. After graduation, Lehár served as a bandmaster in the Austro-Hungarian Army and Navy. He is most famous for his operettas – the most successful of which is The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe) – but he also wrote sonatas, symphonic poems and marches. Despite an uneasy relationship between Lehár and the Nazi regime, Hitler still awarded him the Goethe Medal in 1940.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Leh%C3%A1r

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Klauspeter Seibel (7 May 1936 in Offenbach am Main – 8 January 2011 in Hamburg) was a German conductor. Trained at the Nuremberg Conservatory and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, he was principal conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra (1980-1988), the Kiel Philharmonic Orchestra (1987-1995), and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (1995-2005). In addition to conducting, Seibel was a professor of conducting at the Hamburger Konservatorium for two decades, and also taught at the Juilliard School, the Chautauqua Institution and at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klauspeter_Seibel

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