composer insight

strauss

Richard Strauss Semyon Bychkov sees Strauss as a man who lived in two very different worlds. “He was born into one and died in another. He had witnessed several collapses of Europe, the last of which (destruction of Germany) was what he took with him to his grave. Having established himself as a leader of the avant-garde while in his twenties, and then, while still a young man (from Rosenkavalier onwards), he frequently saw himself accused of being a renegade. Suddenly Stravinsky, Schoenberg and the new music had arrived, and he was no longer considered to be an inventor of new music.

“What I find extraordinary is that in Elektra he had already gone to the extreme bounds of tonality. It’s as if he found himself on the edge of a precipice, looked down and saw it was a long way to fall, so instead of taking the next step straight ahead he went sideways. Many of those who followed him didn’t turn and jumped! But time is the best judge of everything. Strauss has survived better than most of his contemporaries.

“On Elektra, if one really studies the score, one will discover that the soft dynamics – piano, pianissimo, and even softer than that – actually outnumber by far the loud ones. Most of it is very intimate; it’s chamber music rather than the bombast sometimes ascribed to this opera. That makes the characters appear in a totally different light. Somebody like Clytemnestra suddenly becomes vulnerable and thus capable of provoking our sympathy.” Strauss once said that his music should be conducted like Mendelssohn – hardly an encouragement to bombast – though Bychkov points out that much of his advice to conductors was tongue in cheek. “I’m afraid that his instruction that conductors should never sweat is regrettably not something I can follow!

“But conserving energy was vital for him. Look at his diaries in the years he conducted at the Berlin Staatsoper, the first decade of the 20th century. He would have an opera rehearsal in the morning, in the afternoon the rehearsal of a Bruckner symphony that nobody knew in those days, then in the evening he would conduct Tristan. At the same time he would write a minimum of ten business letters a day. And also compose, every single day. How this man was able to pack all of that into a single day is difficult to comprehend.

“He had to organise his energy, otherwise he simply would not survive. You can see this in the films of him conducting. His extreme reserve sometimes looks like coldness, but there must have been a great deal of shyness about the man. When it came to expressing his own music, blatant sentimentality was absolutely alien to him.”

“After his recent Daphne with Renee Fleming (Decca), Semyon Bychkov rounds up some of the cast from the 2003 Elektra he conducted at Covent Garden for a Richard Strauss performance as electrifying as they come. Deborah Polaski takes the title role, but the real star of the Royal Opera show, Anne Schwanewilms, is here as her sister, Chrysothemis. Strauss’s angst-ridden portrayal is of a royal family dysfunctional even by Windsor standards. The expertise of this Strauss specialist is evident in every sumptuous bar.”
[Strauss Elektra / WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln / Profil, Edition Günter Hänssler]
The Observer, January 06

“I had heard not only the best conducted Elektra of my life, but also one of the best it is ever possible to hear. Discounting recorded versions, as far as my personal experience can tell, Bychkov’s performance can only be compared to Maestro Lorin Maazel’s at the 1996 Salzburg Festival. On that occasion Maazel took the opportunity to show what he can do when he actually wants to. At last year’s Salzburg Festival, Maestro Bychkov’s conducting of Der Rosenkavalier was absolutely stunning. One writer judged him "heavy” and "bad in the waltzes". How I wish he were here now, watching him beating the triple time with a gentle arc, softly imposed on the baton by the wrist. I wish he could see how, as the plot thickens, the wave of Bychkov’s hand becomes lighter and lighter eventually reduced to the mere flock of the wrist. I wish he could listen to a concert that reminds of leaves rustling and, as rarely happens, fulfils the composer’s wish for Elektra to be conducted as if it was "music of the elves" I wish he could praise what is not only excellent orchestration and conducting, but above all, a true "Straussian" performance.”
[Strauss Elektra / Teatro alla Scala di Milano]
Corriere della Sera, May 2005

“Bychkov is clearly an outstanding craftsman who is able to demonstrate his enormous creative power with a couple of hand movements. Richard Strauss once declared that Elektra should be played like fairy music and probably meant that the work only exhibits its qualities to he full when all the dynamic tones of the score are followed precisely. Bychkov demonstrates that. His Elektra does not lack dramatic force for a single moment and yet one still hears uncommonly quiet and almost whispered tones. That does no just make the singers’ lives easier, it also brings out fully the symphonic qualities of the orchestra…..”
[Strauss Elektra / Staatsoper Wien]
Die Presse, September 1999

Recordings featuring strauss:

Strauss

Eine Alpensinfonie
Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche

WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln

Profil

Buy from Classics Onilne

Strauss, Richard

Also sprach Zarathustra
Don Juan

Philharmonia Orchestra and
Royal Concertgebouw Orchester

Philips

Buy from Amazon

Strauss, Richard

Daphne

Renée Fleming, Kwanchul Youn, Anna Larsson,
Michael Schade, Johan Botha
WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln
Herren des WDR Rundfunkchors
Decca
Download from iTunes

Buy from Amazon