This album from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, considered one of the world’s greatest Strauss ensembles, features Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life) whose US premiere it gave in 1900. The CSO pours out a lush interpretation of Richard Strauss’s large and complex tone poem in their newest live recording; Principal Conductor Bernard Haitink leads with restraint and allows the strings and woodwinds to sing. In the famous Battle Scene, the brass and percussion roar, while concertmaster Robert Chen plays his violin solos depicting Strauss’s wife with tender beauty. Webern’s early tone poem Im Sommerwind is indebted to Strauss’s rhapsodic romanticism, overflowing with spacious melodies.
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PRAISE FOR THESE CONCERTS
“Haitink worked his customary miracles on behalf of Richard Strauss and the CSO gave him what it always gives him: superb and deeply felt playing.” —Chicago Tribune
“[In Webern’s Im Sommerwind,] Haitink asked for a refined beauty of sound and got it in abundance.” —Chicago Tribune
Additional Details
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Bernard Haitink, conductor
Producer: James Mallinson
Engineer: Christopher Willis
Audio post-production: Classic Sound
Limited, UK
Recorded live in Orchestra Hall at
Symphony Center, December 4, 5, and
6, 2008 (Strauss), and April 23, 24, 25,
and 28, 2009 (Webern)
