Customer Reviews

Elektra in Full Score (Dover Vocal Scores)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great buy compared to the full score available from the other publisher--Boosey, I believe. Its one drawback is the extremely tiny print on some pages which make it sometimes difficult to follow.

It is in "Elektra" that Richard Strauss came closest to entering the world of atonality (some passages - e.g., Klytämnestra's recounting how sleep is denied to her thanks to terrible nightmares - actually do cross the border temporarily); also, compared to "Salome"'s seductive, enticing feeling, Strauss (while using a very similar formula in fact to the other work) nevertheless from the very 1st notes evokes a completely different atmosphere!

To fully appreciate the grim world of this work, even when following recordings, one can't do without the full-score - and what a Godsend with Dover's inexpensive, well-sized, well-bound reprint of the original Adolf Fürstner edition!!! Most warmly recommended not only to Strauss-lovers but also to all opera-buffs, serious music students (especially those who care about the orchestra and effective writing for it!) and generally for any serious music-library!!

If anybody finds any of the print small, good luck with trying to get a full-sized score of the kind a conductor actually uses on the podium (something like 11" x 14") - those things all too often are not available for sale but only on rental when a conductor is actually performing the work somewhere! As it stands, on all of size, book-quality and price: this Dover edition beats the official Fürstner + Boosey & Hawkes study-score (around 8½" x 11") HANDS DOWN!!!!! Absolutely a complete steal - please don't miss out on it!!!!

I knew that Elektra had the largest orchestra of any opera, 111 players, so what I really wanted to see was the instrumentation, and is it interesting. How many composers use Heckelphones, Basset Horns and violins parts 1,2,3 and 4. And it just get more interesting from there.