Customer Reviews

Richard Strauss: An Alpine Symphony (Eine Alpensinfonie) ~ Wit

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

 

 

Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony was the last of his colorful tone poems. A wonderful work it is. Tracing a journey through the Alps, the music is immediately and continually appealing through all of its 54 minutes.

If you have never heard this symphony, you are in for a treat, especially if lucky enough to hear this recording of it. Yes, it is a rather lengthy piece, but it will not fail to hold your interest, trust me.

But it's not just the great music alone. That's because the orchestra here plays as if it were one of the world's finest. Listen to the superb brass playing in track 13 (on the summit/auf dem gipfel). The horn section (numbering 20 in this music) is always extremely important in any R. Strauss orchestral work. Here the horns are brilliant, and their other brass colleagues are with them all the way. They all play their hearts (and lips)out.

After listening to this cd a few times, I wondered about two questions. First, why has the Staatskapelle Weimar not been recorded more frequently, and secondly, why is the conductor in this record (Antoni Wit) not the music director of one of the world's major orchestras? (The latter question is not meant to belittle in any way his current orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic, which I have heard on other Naxos recordings. They are very good.)

Bottom line here: attractive music, superbly performed, and brilliantly recorded -- and at a budget price. I own at least 9 other recordings of this symphony; I love it. But this Naxos cd contains as fine An Alpine Symphony as you will find for the money. Grab it now before someone figures out its true worth and doubles the price.

Tim Koerner

June 2008

Strauss was a child prodigy, already composing extensively throughout his teens. Although he composed in most genres, the early part of his career was notable for his orchestral works, and this is the period from which most of the famous symphonic poems emerged, often calling upon large orchestral forces. He then moved his emphasis to opera, and it was after one of his later and most famous operas, Der Rosenkavalier, that he returned to compose one of his greatest, and certainly his longest, "symphonic poems" - the Alpine Symphony (it is notable that after the first performance, Strauss commented "now I have finally learned how to orchestrate". It is also notable that Strauss never had any extensive formal training in music!) Enough on context, let's examine this wonderful performance.

Strauss specified an orchestra of 135 to 150 players, with about 20 forming an off-stage ensemble, basically brass, plus extensive percussion and a pipe organ. But he only uses the full forces at times; he mainly wanted these forces to allow an extensive coloristic canvas.

Before going any further, let's dispel a couple of myths. The work is seen by most listeners (and quite a few CD booklet writers, AND the official Amazon reviewer) as a tone poem consisting of a large number of linked episodes, claiming it should not be called a symphony. While there is no denying the episodic nature of this programmatic work, study by some musicologists has revealed a loose but definite underlying four-movement symphonic structure. This is subtle and it is more common to identify six symphonic sections. The main point is that there exists an underlying, musically unifying, symphonic structure. Strauss fully knew what he was doing when he called this work a Symphony.

Throughout the work, Strauss identified various points with markers, to help correlate the "story" with the music. These are not intended to separate the music into sections, in the way the separate movements of a symphony are identified, or even the 'numbers' of a ballet (although it is coming closer in this case), are defined, especially relevant when the movements of such works are linked. Consequently, there is a level of arbitrariness in identifying these markers. Currently available recordings show anything between 17 and 25 such reference points, with 22 being the most popular number, (with Strauss's own performance electing to indicate 20 such reference points). The 22 reference points indicated on this recording are completely consistent with other similarly annotated recordings, which is quite correct according to the score.

Enough of the lecture!

Turning to the performance, I was most pleasantly surprised. Until now, for me the best performance in relatively modern sound, is the Kempe/Dresden recording from the 70s, later transferred to CD. It always had good sonics, doing justice to an outstanding performance. Since then, some nice performances have come along; good interpretations; good orchestral playing and good engineering. But they have all lacked one thing - the recognition of the subtle underlying cohesiveness of the piece. There has been a tendency to play it as an orchestral showpiece, and nothing more, and so missing some very subtle added depth to make even more of the performance. For me, the Zinman/Zurich Tonhalle version, excellently played and recorded by BMG and released under their Arte Nova label (initially in 20003, then withdrawn, then they realized their mistake and issued it again in 2006), is one of the few performances that has come close to penetrating the full depths of this composition.

Now comes this performance. I have been familiar with Wit's work for many years, and have admired him as an intelligent interpreter, well skilled at penetrating the depths of the work, and well able to control the forces under his command. He plays this work with a clear perception of it as a whole, that is, as a unified, symphonic work, written in the form of linked programmatic episodes. The difference is slight, but recognition of the unifying musical structure gives added strength to the performance. It is still a showpiece, but now we hear a showpiece with some substance (remember, Strauss considered it to be amongst has best achievements).

The big surprise was the orchestra. They play like a top-rank international body, only with a greater sense of musicality than we often now hear from some of the big names. Strings have a lovely warm, silken sheen, the French horns almost made me think of that section on the Vienna Phil when it was at its peak; I give these as examples. As has been mentioned by others, high-quality playing by the brass is needed, and it is delivered. And when the entire orchestra comes together, it is clear that they listen to each other, producing an excellent ensemble sound. But, of course, this work depends on excellent solo playing too, especially from the woodwind. And again, they deliver.

One would need to strive very hard to find an odd place where a minor criticism could be offered. and to do so would be churlish amongst such riches. This ranks among the best available performances. To say which is the best is a personal thing, so I will leave that to the individual. But I can certainly recommend this for your consideration, especially as it is complemented by excellent engineering,something not uncommon with Naxos these days.(Naxos has delivered slightly better sound on a few releases, but they were mainly engineered for audiophile release as an SACD, a format they have decided to discontinue), but still a high standard exists, and the metering on my system shows a normal recording level, reaching a quite adequate dB level on the peaks (despite the comments of a couple of reviewers: perhaps they have been misled by the unusually wide dynamic range). If you are after a recording of this work, make sure this is on your list. One final point: at 54 minutes, it does seem as if the disk could do with a filler. But as the piece fades into the dusk, to have the mood shattered a few seconds later by something else would only spoil things. And remember, it is at a bargain price.

EDIT: I have just completed some further research on this release, and it is very clear that an extremely large number of top critics around the world consider this the best version currently available. So far, I have not found one expert arguing against this opinion, and the bonus of the Gramophone giving it an Editor's Choice award can only give added weight to this reception. But one must allow for different tastes, and some might prefer a slightly different interpretation. There is really no other aspect of this release that is open to criticism.

Antoni Wit goes back almsot to the beginning of the Naxos era, when a fledgling budget company managed in short order to grab a 10% share of the entire classical market. Those early recordings of staple works were often ragged, but now that Naxos is a mature company, they directly compete in standard repertoire with excellent sonics and better performances.

This Strauss Alpine Sym. can't stand with the very best from Karajan, Welser-Most, Mehta (his remake with the spectacular Berlin Phil. on Sony) or Previn (with the equally stupendous Vienna Phil.), but it's a sonorous, resounding reading in warm, somewhat resonant sonics that suit the gigantism of the work very well. The Staatskapelle Weimer plays far better than you'd expect from a third-tier German orchestra--only the lower strings lack body, and the violins are a bit short of flash. The assembled fleet of horns osunds fine, as do the wind soloists in general. Otherwise, Naxos can mark a worthy new addiiton to their catalog.

P.S.--The Gramophone picked this CD as a recording of the month for Sept. It ranks as the best budget choice for the Alpine Sym. along with David Zinman's 2004 version for Arte Nova. Having heard both, I feel justified in raising the Wit to five stars.

I first heard this recording at work on my Tivoli Model 2 radio hooked up to my PC. It was broadcast on radioioclassical. Prior to hearing this recording my favorite recording was an old CSO radio broadcast recording that was from the 60's I believe. While no principal trumpet player compares to Adolph Herseth, the Weimar principal doesn an excellent job and overall the brass playing is fantastic - great blend, intonation, style and sonority. Of course the rest of the orchestra is excellent as wel. Overall, I am extremely pleased with this recording and although I am a trumpet player and the old CSO recording is of particular interest to me, I prefer this Weimar recording. It is my new standard for the Alpine Symphony!

Strauss declared that with the Alpine Symphony he had finally learned to orchestrate. To my own ears, he wasn't all that bad at the orchestration previously, but I have to agree that we hear -- or should hear -- the full glory of the great Strauss sound in this piece. Obviously, however well the instrumentalists acquit themselves they are at the mercy of the recorded quality. We are very pampered these days in the way of recorded quality and I couldn't say that this disc equals some others as a feast for the ears. I have seen the performance criticised to some extent for this, but I'm not so sure that's completely fair.

The sound is not bad at all, but there is a slight lack of refinement about it. I'm not familiar with the work of the Staatskapelle Weimar and it may be that it's not the full equal of, say, the Chicago Symphony or the Berlin Philharmonic. On the other hand it is an orchestra with a long and distinguished pedigree, and the players are manifestly up to the technical demands of this taxing score, so my suspicion is that the recording itself lets them down just a little on this occasion. The main problem is in the louder passages, but the woodwind and brass solos lack the final ounce of splendour too. All this makes me a little hesitant over assessing the tempi. Antoni Wit adopts fairly fast speeds in the sequences marked as fast, and the slower episodes sound unusually slow by contrast rather than in comparison with other versions if we actually time them, and my feeling is that if the sound had done full justice to the caressing effect that characterises Strauss's orchestral writing Wit's tempo alternations may have been very effective and natural indeed. It all seems to come back to that tone-quality somehow.

These slight reservations leave me in the position of saying, as someone once said of the music of Wagner, that this performance is better than it sounds. I believe that this is a really thoughtful and original interpretation of this marvellous score, and I don't suggest that the engineering will prevent any listener from being aware of that. Moreover, it is on a budget label, and a newcomer to the score wishing to get a first impression of it can be recommended this as a safe initial investment. The work lasts 5 or 6 minutes short of a full hour and there is no filler, but I'm not sure what a suitable filler might be and value for money measured on a scale of quantity is not my primary concern anyhow. What I do get out of this performance is a genuine sense of the pagan exuberance of the thing. Strauss was greatly taken with the philosophy of Nietzsche, and what his Alpine Symphony needs to communicate is the impression of a self-confident athlete tackling an Alpine climb in the spirit of being at one with nature and unencumbered by the oppressive and illusory Christian God as both philosopher and composer perceived the matter. The liner note is quite helpful up to a point in explaining the origins of the score in Nietzsche, but rather elusive and tantalising in suggesting a subsidiary theme concerned with the suicide of the artist Stauffer. It might also be worth saying for newcomers that this `Symphony' is not something that Beethoven or Brahms or Sibelius, or perhaps even Mahler, would have understood by that term. It is a continuous `tone-poem' like Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra or Ein Heldenleben, and while it contains a certain amount of representational music, in particular the storm, the various sections represent their themes more at a conceptual level than in a pictorial way in the manner of, say, the sheep in Strauss's own Don Quixote or the various naturalistic effects in Haydn's Seasons.

All in all, a qualified welcome. There are many other fine accounts of this great piece, and a categorical recommendation is unrealistic. You would really have to research the available offerings, guided perhaps by reviewers you have confidence in, to see which suits you best. However if you find the work to your taste and are inclined to look for another version, look out for a possible reissue of the beautiful account that Andrew Davis did with the London Philharmonic on 1982. To be going on with, you will find a very understanding and sympathetic rendering here.

I wouldn't venture to guess how many recordings of Strauss's 'Alpine Symphony' there have been, going all the way back to Strauss himself conducting it. But the competition is fierce. The present recording with Antoni Wit conducting the Staatskapelle Weimar is not bad, but it's also not among the best. First, there is the matter of the sound. The recording level is low and you'll have to crank up your volume to hear everything. Not in itself a serious problem, but I do think it affects the overall depth of sound. Second, though, and much more important, there is rather a mishmash when we get to the really loud and complicated passages, such as 'Gewitter und Sturm, Abstieg' ('Thunder and Storm, Descent'). Although the individual sections of the Weimar orchestra are good, somehow they don't always mesh very well. The most appealing sections of the performance are those with relatively thin textures and slower tempi, such as 'Auf der Alm' ('On the Alpine Pastures'). Wit does a reasonably creditable job but he does tend to linger a bit more than I'd prefer. Finally, the symphony is the only work on the CD, adding up to a mere 54 minutes. Even at budget price, this is not much of a bargain.

My own current favorites for the Alpine Symphony are the recent recording by Franz Welser-Möst and the remarkable Mahler Jugendorchester and the performance by David Zinman and the Zurich Tonhalle. I believe the latter is available singly but I have it in the extraordinary box of most of Strauss's orchestral music, a sensational value. And then there is the wonderful long-time favorite of many, the performance by Rudolf Kempe and the Dresden Staatskapelle. I also like, a pleasant surprise to me, the version with Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting the Czech Philharmonic.

So, as the title says, you can do better.

Scott Morrison

The other reviews of this have been reasonable, claiming that other recordings have been better. I disagree. Here is an excellent recording of a beautiful piece, for a relatively low price. Everything is played pretty and slow and nice, and it's here. It's here, it's good, it's cheap, and lovely. Even the sound quality is good. The playing is amazing. It's all dark and slow and pretty and then it rises and gets bigger and smaller and ends. I listened to it and fell in love.

Richard Strauss presents to us something here that's very different. This isn't like most symphonies that pop into mind. It tells a tale. It's almost like a picture, or a story. With each rise and fall of the orchestra, the listener really feels it. The feeling and the mood just feel so RIGHT. There are creepy, eery parts (night... dark and frightening). There are bold, powerful parts ("Auf dem Gletscher"). There are parts that are just so beautiful, with solo instruments sounding so good, it's just "wow" inspiring ("Auf Blumigen Wiesen" comes to mind). The only minus is perhaps the fact that if you transfer it to the computer, the track separations get a little cut off unless you set the album to be a "gapless". Other than this minor note, it's wonderful.

If you want a recording of "An Alpine Symphony" then buy this. It's excellent, and you can't ask for a better bargain. If you want a GOOD recording of "An Alpine Symphony", buy this. It's played wonderfully, and I can't ask for more.

I'm not sure what happened to the track listing for this album in the download store ... I went to the Naxos web site to find the correct listing. Track 6 is listed as "Am Wasserfall (By the Waterfall) - Erscheinung (Apparition)" which is really the titles for tracks 6 and 7. Later on track 14 lists "Nebel steigen auf (Mists Rise) - Die Sonne verdustert sich (The Sun is Gradually Obscured)". These are the titles for tracks 15 and 16. Thankfully, the movements play in the correct order.