Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
Josephslegende, op.63 (1914) [66:42]
Staatskapelle Weimar/Stefan Solyom
rec. CCN Weimarhalle, 3-4 June 2012
CPO 777 902-2 [66:42]
Strauss appears to have composed Josephslegende, his longest
continuous piece for full orchestra, on something akin to autopilot. He
complained that the subject matter "isn't at all up my alley,
and when a thing bores me I have a hard time finding music for it."
Given the composer's clear lack of enthusiasm - and one or two other
rather more important things that were happening in Europe during that
summer of 1914 - it was not too surprising that his ballet-pantomime, as it
was termed, subsequently fell into near oblivion.
Nonetheless, in 1947, towards the end of his life, Strauss clearly felt
that the score had merit enough to be worth reworking into an abbreviated
version for reduced forces and, in his 150th anniversary year, it's
been good to see that, with more high quality recordings on the market than
ever before, the full 1914 version of Josephslegende at last
appears to be coming into its own. It's true that several of my
colleagues have, in an echo of the composer's own self-proclaimed boredom,
exhibited a somewhat dismissive attitude to it. Peter Grahame Woolf, for instance, suggested that
"anticipation . is quickly dashed by a feeling that one has heard it all
before", while Colin Anderson (both Sinopoli, DG) thought that "this isn't music that
will stand too many listens". However, for lovers of Strauss at his
self-indulgent, full blown ripest, it really is hard to see how
Josephslegende - preferably accompanied by a dish of tarte
tatin smothered in clotted cream and accompanied by a few glasses of
6-puttonyos tokay - can be beaten.
This new account from the Staatskapelle Weimar under Stefan Solyom, their
principal conductor since 2009, is in many respects an impressive one. This
particular orchestra has a notable Strauss tradition. The composer himself
was its deputy conductor for five years from 1889 and the Weimar players
premiered not only his early opera Guntram but, rather more
auspiciously, Don Juan, Macbeth and Death and
Transfiguration.
It is hard to find fault with the orchestra's playing on this disc.
They throw off the many complex virtuoso passages with great aplomb.
Appropriately substantial weight is accorded to the score's frequent
elements of high drama: sample, for instance, track 15, given the
misleadingly anodyne description Potiphar makes the sign for the raising
of the tables. Meanwhile, sequences of greater delicacy are equally
skilfully and convincingly executed: track 17 Joseph's dream
followed by track 18 Then the door in the portal to the right is opened
and Potiphar's wife comes stealthily in. The exceptionally
finely-balanced woodwinds are especially impressive throughout, as a quick
sampling of track 11 - Dance of Joseph, second dance-figure: the
leaps - demonstrates. In fact, all sections of the orchestra are so
well integrated that it is impossible to pick out any particularly weak
element.
Josephslegende has, if it is not going to sound over-the-top in
its blatant excess, to be played with utter conviction and for all it is
worth - and then some. Conductor Solyom's approach is at the rather
restrained end of the spectrum. One might imagine him somewhat embarrassed
by the score for he almost invariably elects to downplay the
composer's more extreme effects and thus to lessen its overall
impact.
Solyom's is surely a mistaken approach. This was, after all, not a
piece originally written for the concert hall but for performance in a
theatre, with all that that implies. Any account that is true to
the composer's conception must therefore depict the full excess of the
on-stage shenanigans - and what shenanigans they are. Co-scenarist Harry
Graf Kessler indulged his Tom of Finland style
sado-masochistic/homoerotic fantasies to the full with, among a great deal
else, a troupe of virtually naked Turkish boxers, whip-brandishing black
slaves and a couple of torturers who are, it appears, pretty nifty with the
red-hot pokers. The detailed descriptive scenario that Strauss worked from
now fills no fewer than thirteen closely-printed pages of one particular CD
booklet, so there is no excuse for any conductor not to know what
over-the-top action Strauss was depicting.
Josephslegende has, then, to be played for all it is worth - and
then some. Come the final two tracks (Now appears an archangel in golden
panoply and The heavens grow bright with a glow of dawn), I
was expecting far more of an emotional catharsis. That is certainly what
Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra deliver in spades in their
very fine Channel Classics account recorded in 2007 (CCS SA 24507). It is,
moreover, what the staged drama actually demands, as vividly demonstrated by
the Vienna Philharmonic under Heinrich Hollreiser as they accompany the
dancers in John Neumeier's staging of the ballet, filmed in 1977 but
still looking - and sounding - remarkably fine (Deutsche Grammophon/Unitel
Classica DVD 00440 073 4315 - see here for the finale).
In this new account, though, the detached overall approach renders such
emotional catharsis unnecessary - and so perhaps, in the end, we don't
really miss it too much.
My colleague Rob Barnett concluded that this CPO version of
Josephslegende was a "safe" choice. If that is what you are
seeking, you need look no further. If, however, you consider that the work
deserves more, then Ivan Fischer is still your man.
Rob Maynard
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