Hans Knappertsbusch: The Orchestral Edition | Australian Eloquence ELQ4841824

Hans Knappertsbusch: The Orchestral Edition

£58.85

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Label: Australian Eloquence

Cat No: ELQ4841824

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 18

Genre: Orchestral

Release Date: 8th April 2022

Contents

Works

Beethoven, Ludwig van

Piano Concerto no.4 in G major, op.58
Piano Concerto no.5 in E flat major, op.73 'Emperor'

Brahms, Johannes

Academic Festival Overture, op.80
Alto Rhapsody, op.53
Piano Concerto no.2 in B flat major, op.83
Symphony no.2 in D major, op.73
Tragic Overture, op.81
Variations on a theme by Haydn, op.56a 'St Anthony Variations'

Bruckner, Anton

Symphony no.3 in D minor (1889 version)
Symphony no.4 in in E flat major 'Romantic' (1888 version)
Symphony no.5 in B flat major (ed. Schalk)
Symphony no.8 in C minor

Komzak, Karl II

Bad'ner Madl'n Walzer, op.257

Nicolai, Otto

Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
» Overture

Schubert, Franz

Marches militaires (3), op.51 D733
» no.1 in D major (orch. Leopold Weninger)

Strauss II, Johann

Accelerationen Waltz, op.234
Annen-Polka, op.117
Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald (Tales from the Vienna Woods), op.325
Leichtes Blut (Light as a Feather), op.319
Tritsch-Tratsch Polka, op.214

Strauss, Johann

Radetzky March, op.228

Strauss, Richard

Don Juan, op.20
Tod und Verklarung (Death and Transfiguration), op.24

Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich

The Nutcracker: Suite, op.71a

Wagner, Richard

Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman)
» Overture
Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
» Dance of the apprentices
» Prelude to Act 1
» Prelude to Act 3
» Suite from Act 3
Die Walkure
» Ride of the Valkyries
Gotterdammerung
» Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey
» Siegfried's Funeral March (Act 3)
Lohengrin
» Prelude to Act 1
» Prelude to Act 3
Parsifal
» Flowermaidens' Scene
» Prelude to Act 1
» Transformation music (Act 1)
Rienzi
» Overture
Siegfried Idyll, WWV103
Siegfried
» Forest Murmurs
Tannhauser
» Overture
» Venusberg Music
Tristan und Isolde
» Prelude and Liebestod

Weber, Carl Maria von

Invitation to the Dance (Aufforderung zum Tanze), J260 (orch. Berlioz)

Ziehrer, Carl

Wiener Burger, op.419

Artists

Clifford Curzon (piano)
Lucretia West (contralto)
Wiener Akademie-Chor
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Munchner Philharmoniker
L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich
Wiener Philharmoniker

Conductor

Hans Knappertsbusch

Works

Beethoven, Ludwig van

Piano Concerto no.4 in G major, op.58
Piano Concerto no.5 in E flat major, op.73 'Emperor'

Brahms, Johannes

Academic Festival Overture, op.80
Alto Rhapsody, op.53
Piano Concerto no.2 in B flat major, op.83
Symphony no.2 in D major, op.73
Tragic Overture, op.81
Variations on a theme by Haydn, op.56a 'St Anthony Variations'

Bruckner, Anton

Symphony no.3 in D minor (1889 version)
Symphony no.4 in in E flat major 'Romantic' (1888 version)
Symphony no.5 in B flat major (ed. Schalk)
Symphony no.8 in C minor

Komzak, Karl II

Bad'ner Madl'n Walzer, op.257

Nicolai, Otto

Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
» Overture

Schubert, Franz

Marches militaires (3), op.51 D733
» no.1 in D major (orch. Leopold Weninger)

Strauss II, Johann

Accelerationen Waltz, op.234
Annen-Polka, op.117
Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald (Tales from the Vienna Woods), op.325
Leichtes Blut (Light as a Feather), op.319
Tritsch-Tratsch Polka, op.214

Strauss, Johann

Radetzky March, op.228

Strauss, Richard

Don Juan, op.20
Tod und Verklarung (Death and Transfiguration), op.24

Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich

The Nutcracker: Suite, op.71a

Wagner, Richard

Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman)
» Overture
Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
» Dance of the apprentices
» Prelude to Act 1
» Prelude to Act 3
» Suite from Act 3
Die Walkure
» Ride of the Valkyries
Gotterdammerung
» Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey
» Siegfried's Funeral March (Act 3)
Lohengrin
» Prelude to Act 1
» Prelude to Act 3
Parsifal
» Flowermaidens' Scene
» Prelude to Act 1
» Transformation music (Act 1)
Rienzi
» Overture
Siegfried Idyll, WWV103
Siegfried
» Forest Murmurs
Tannhauser
» Overture
» Venusberg Music
Tristan und Isolde
» Prelude and Liebestod

Weber, Carl Maria von

Invitation to the Dance (Aufforderung zum Tanze), J260 (orch. Berlioz)

Ziehrer, Carl

Wiener Burger, op.419

Artists

Clifford Curzon (piano)
Lucretia West (contralto)
Wiener Akademie-Chor
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Munchner Philharmoniker
L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich
Wiener Philharmoniker

Conductor

Hans Knappertsbusch

About

Gathered together for the first time on Universal Music labels, including several first CD releases on Decca, is the orchestral legacy of an inimitable genius of the podium: Hans Knappertsbusch.Even in his own lifetime, Hans Knappertsbusch divided opinion, between listeners affronted by technical slips caused by his notorious aversion to rehearsal and those who saw in him the last representative of a performing tradition dating back to Richard Wagner.

Working mostly in the opera houses of Munich and Vienna, he never became music director of a symphony orchestra, but his postwar Decca recordings of central repertoire from Beethoven to Strauss, including three distinguished concerto collaborations with Clifford Curzon, preserve interpretations of a flexibility, sweep and grandeur scarcely imaginable today.

For Decca, Knappertsbusch recorded with the great orchestras of London, Paris, Zurich, Geneva and Vienna. The orchestral discography began with Brahms’s Second Symphony with the Suisse Romande, Wagnerian ‘bleeding chunks’ in the Kingsway Hall in December 1947 and ended in February 1960 in the Sofiensaal of Vienna, conducting Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite with a delicacy and grace that will surprise listeners who think of him only as the high priest of Parsifal at Bayreuth. The box is full of such surprises: an album of Strauss waltzes and polkas that turns on a sixpence; nimble Bruckner scherzos; one of the swiftest versions of Tod und Verklärung on record.

Once introduced to Clifford Curzon, Knappertsbusch was immediately enthusiastic about performing and recording with ‘this great English gentleman’; their versions of Beethoven’s Fourth and Fifth and Brahms’s Second have long been mainstays of the Decca catalogue. Much else here is newly remastered and now widely available on Decca for the first time in many years, such as Wagnerian overtures and preludes with the Zurich Tonhalle (1947) and the London Philharmonic (1948) orchestras.

Bruckner’s Symphonies nos. 3-5 preserve Knappertsbusch’s profound working relationship with the VPO at its most harmonious. A magnificently trenchant Brahms album with the VPO in 1957 also features Lucretia West in the Alto Rhapsody. For devotees and sceptics alike, this box offers revelations and the opportunity to reassess the art of a conductor held in the deepest affection by many of the musicians and singers who worked with him.

‘This ... will please everyone who loves opulent brazen sound. As a Wagnerian, Prof. Knappertsbusch is plainly a great conductor ... The Wagner of burlesque – lady wrestlers as Valkyries, heaving on Clydesdales and percherons; winds of two-miles-per-hour in the Dutchman’s hurricane ... Still, the sound is splendid.’ – High Fidelity, January 1954 (Wagner Preludes, VPO)

‘There is less heaviness, more flexibility and true Viennese spirit in his reading than in any of the others.’ – High Fidelity, February 1956 (Bruckner - Symphony no.4)

‘There apparently exists a wonderful rapport between the English virtuoso and the German conductor, for this performance is pervaded by a nearly tangible quality of artistic give-and-take.’ – Stereo Review, April 1958 (Beethoven - Piano Concerto no.5)

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