Strauss: Four Last Songs/Songs With Orchestra

Richard [1] Strauss (Composer), Kurt Masur (Conductor), Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (Orchestra), Jessye Norman (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Jessye Norman
• Orchestra: Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
• Conductor: Kurt Masur
• Composer: Richard [1] Strauss
• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Polygram Records
• ASIN: B0000040VV
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #152,376 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #28 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Divas > Norman, Jessye

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Take to wing., March 29, 2000

By 

Michael Newberry (Santa Monica) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Strauss: Four Last Songs/Songs With Orchestra (Audio CD)

My two choices for Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss are the Norman and the Schwarzkopf versions. Going by sound Jessye Norman and Kurt Masur combine to make beautifully phrasing-her sound is rich, pure, and arches over the heavens. By comparison Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's voice sounds a tad smaller, but her interpretation of both the music and the lyrics is integrated so well that you are swept into the conception of the piece. In song 2, SEPTEMBER, when she sings, Lange noch bei den Rosen, Bleibt er stenhen, sehnt sich nach Ruh, (Long by the roses, it tarries, yearns for rest), I can feel the length of the stem and the bloom of the rose and I feel I am calm, lying in a quiet garden. But my first choice is the Norman, my soul takes wing and I am gone! Both have good booklets, with German text and English translations, though the text and translation is not side by side in the Norman. They both included several other Strauss songs with full orchestra, equally excellent.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The all-Strauss program is especially recommended, May 29, 2001

By 

Laon (moon-lit Surry Hills) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Strauss: Four Last Songs/Songs With Orchestra (Audio CD)

Summary: want the best Four Last Songs? Buy this. But buy the all-Strauss program in preference to the newer release in which the Four Last Songs are coupled with the Wagner Wesendonk Lieder instead. However, both are recommended.

There are so many great recordings of this piece, especially Kiri te Kanawa, Fleming, Caballe, Eaglen, Lott, Rothenberger. And there are also recordings where arguably the voice is the wrong kind of Strauss voice, the lighter, more silvery kind, for example Lisa della Casa and Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, who despite that reservation both give us wonderful recordings. The only recording I know that I wouldn't recommend is Anna Tomowa-Sintow's thin-toned effort with Karajan.

(One of history's small tragedies is that Flagstad never gave us a proper studio recording of this music. She gave the first performance with Furtwangler, of which a scratchy recording exists, apparently taken off the radio. As well as appalling sound, she seems to rush the first song, before settling down for the others. But a proper studio recording, with good engineering and relaxed conditions, and Flagstad in full voice was denied us: I hope Richard Strauss gets to hear it in heaven.)

But even with a piece that is so often so well recorded there has to be a best, and in this case it's a clear best: Jessye Norman's is the Holy Grail of Four Last Songs recordings. While Schwarzkopf might have the edge over her for word-pointing, Norman has a huge, even unfair advantage: these songs are supposed to bathe us in warm, chocolate-liqueur sound, creamy and voluptuous as (well, I won't say what, here); and Norman has that richness and warmth and to spare. With all that beauty, the depth of her interpretation is a bonus, almost too much to hope for, but here it is, delivered.

The excellence of the performance continues in the rest of the program, more Strauss Lieder favourites. If you like Strauss Lieder at all, you will duplicate many songs already in your collection (Morgan, etc), but with singing like this it doesn't matter.

More recently the Norman/Masur Four Last Songs has been re-issued with Norman singing the Wesendonk Lieder. Her performance there is also beautiful, but overall I'd recommend going for the earlier release with the all-Strauss program. It's a more generously filled CD, and I prefer the stylistic continuity of staying with Strauss, rather than jumping to the Wagner mid-way through the CD. The Wagner is greater music than the Strauss songs, but it is in a different mood, more thoughtful and more astringent (it is lush music, in most contexts; only astringent in comparison with the Strauss). Ideally, buy the all-Strauss program, and seek out Norman's recording of the Wesendonk Lieder as well.

Despite the preference for the older release with the all-Strauss program, I should say that the Wagner coupling does providfe even greater music, and once you've made the slight adjustment from one composer to the other, you can enjoy another great performance. In either version of this CD, I whole-heartedly recommend this perfect and perfectly beautiful recording of the Four Last Songs.

Cheers!

Laon

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Norman Conquests, February 6, 2005

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Strauss: Four Last Songs/Songs With Orchestra (Audio CD)

Some recordings captured when singers were at their splendid best (and now thankfully digitally remastered so that the acoustics remain au courrant) are simply staples of the music library. This recording made in 1982 (!) remains a benchmark in the great recordings of Richard Strauss' magnificent 'Vier letzte Lieder', right up there along with Schwarzkopf, Janowitz, and Popp. In collaboration with Kurt Mazur and the Gewandhaus Orchestra, this reading of the 'Four Last Songs' is languid, full of recall of a life spent and resignation to the concept of mortality.

Norman takes her time with the beauty of the phrases, lingering over each of the thoughts and contemplative passages, and sounding absolutely luxurious of tone and intelligence. For those deeply moved by some of the non-Philip Glass music used in 'The Hours' film, then here is the recording used as background in Clarice's home as she prepares her party for her dying friend.

Equally lush are the accompanying Norman readings of six of Strauss' more familiar songs for voice and orchestra: 'Caecelie', 'Morgen', 'Wiegenlied', 'Ruhe, meine Seele', 'Meinem Kinde', and 'Zueignung'. Bliss, this. For soul enrichment place this miraculous CD to play in a quiet room at sunset and the subsequent gloaming and feel this Norman conquest. Grady Harp, February 2005