Richard Strauss top 5 Tone Poems

[laredo]

I'm engaged with these fantastic works. Till now i've heard only Don Juan, Tod und Verklarung and Sinfonia Domestica.
Which are r favourite tone poems?
P.S.: I can't wait to listen to Schoenberg's Pelleas and Melisande...

[Lethevich]

I find Don Quixote to be his finest work in the medium - it's such a virtuoso essay in orchestral colour and mood. My other favourites are Don Juan, Tod und Verklärung and Metamorphosen (which only half counts).

I like all the others, but I find the Alpine Symphony, Heldenleben and Symphonia Domestica (all late works) to be too overblown at times.

Many of my favourite (or joint favourite) performances are to be found in the Brilliant Classics Kempe box licenced from EMI. The Don Quixote recording in this set I love especially for the clarity and power during the VIIth variation, where many recordings become muddled.

[laredo]

I own it, thx for r considerations.

[Brahmsian]

My 5 favorites, currently (not really in order, except for # 1):

1 - Eine Alpensinfonie

2 - Don Quixote

3 - Also Sprach Zarathustra

4 - Ein Heldenleben

5 - Tod und Verkalung

**If Metamorphosen counted as a tone poem (and I don't think it does), it would be in my Top 5 for sure.

[Scarpia]

What is the point of selecting the top 5 tone poems of a composer who wrote 8 tone poems?

[mahler10th]

What is the point of selecting the top 5 tone poems of a composer who wrote 8 tone poems?

Quite literally,     lol lol 

1.  Alpine Symphony
2.  Til Eulenspiegel
3.  Tod und Verkalung
4.  A Heros Life
5.  Zarathustra, etc

[(poco) Sforzando]

What is the point of selecting the top 5 tone poems of a composer who wrote 8 tone poems?

Quite right. Better to select the top 7.

[Lethevich]

What is the point of selecting the top 5 tone poems of a composer who wrote 8 tone poems?

People do it for Beethoven symphonies

[mahler10th]

People do it for Beethoven symphonies

I , for one, most certainly do not!

1.  Karajan - BPO
2.  Abbado - BPO
3.  Gardiner....etc...

[snyprrr]

 

[Guido]

The greatest is Don Quixote - an essay of astonishing energy, resource and imagination, the most extreme, innovative and masterful handling of the orchestra in any of the tone poems, the tone poem with the least slag and dross and note spinning, peculiarly touching, and by the end truly moving, and perhaps the most extraordinary example in all of music of musical onomatopeia - every detail of the narrative lovingly portrayed and delineated in millions of notes. It's an extraordinary piece, and one of Strauss' very greatest - probably his greatest non vocal work.

[mjwal]

I (half) agree with you, Guido - the Alpensinfonie seems to me to be in some respects more advanced and in its way equally moving. My guilty pleasure is Heldenleben, which I regard as a sort of fix (sniffing the grandiloquence... ) - I just love that 1928 Mengelberg recording*. I don't much like Tod und Verklärung, except for the bit of tune he so memorably quotes in Vier letzte Lieder, or Macbeth, and once is enough for Aus Italien.
What's with the "only 8 tone poems" - I (and Wikipedia - just checked)  count 10), so "Take 5" is a reasonable request  :
AI
M
TuV
DJ
TE
AsZ
DQ
HL
SD
AS

* P.S. I suppose the ultimate performance of that may have been Bartók's of his own transcription at the Tonkünstlerverein in 1903.

[Scarpia]

What's with the "only 8 tone poems" - I (and Wikipedia - just checked)  count 10), so "Take 5" is a reasonable request  :

You may consider me pedantic, but I consider a work with the word "symphony" in the title to be a symphony.   

[(poco) Sforzando]

I do not much like Richard Strauss (I'm with Stravinsky: "I do not like the major works, and I do not like the minor works.") But to my mind, the less he indulges his proclivity to expand, the better. For me the gem of the tone poem series is Till Eulenspiegel, with the two Dons and TuV closely following. So that's four, and if you add the opening sunrise of ASZ you get my fifth. I utterly dislike Heldenleben, Domestica, and Alpine; prefer Shakespeare's Macbeth, and of the operas I only really like Elektra.

The only other Strauss tone poem I like is Elgar's In the South.

[MishaK]

Well, I think most will agree that Aus Italien and Macbeth are rather inferior works, with Sinfonia Domestica not terribly far above those in quality. Also Sprach Zarathustra is a letdown after one of the most monumental and overplayed openings. I have yet to hear a performance where this congeals into one coherent whole. Personally, I would have to say that as a composition Till is far and away my favorite and in my opinion his most effectively composed tone poem. None other is this efficiently composed, consisting essentially of two related inverted themes that make up almost the entire musical material. Alpensinfonie is a close second in economy of means and the evocative, almost photorealistically picturesque way in which ascending and descending themes (again inversions) are used to paint an immensely varied soundscape. I love Don Quixote as Strauss's contribution to the theme and variations form and a rare solo cello masterpiece. It is immensely hard to get off properly, though. (I just recently attended a live performance with Vogler/Dresden/Luisi, which I thought was a mixed bag.) Don Juan is so brief and well organized on a dramatic level that one can't not include it here, which means we're now up to 4. For No.5, it's a bit more difficult of a decision between Tod und Verklärung and Heldenleben. I would probably have to give the nod to Tod und Verklärung which again shows Strauss at his best as an extremely vivid naturalist tone-painter. Heldenleben has some fine moments, but as a whole I find it too episodic.

Current favorite recordings of the top 5 above:

Till: Live Boulez/CSO 1995 - CSO From the Archives - Tribute to Pierre Boulez - Believe it or not, Boulez of all people is the only one I've heard who brings out the Haydnesque humor of this work while preventing the brass from burying everything - I was lucky to have attended this performance in person.

Alpensinfonie: Luisi/Dresden/Sony - simply the most sumptuous and engrossing prefromance I have ever heard.

Don Quixote: du Pré/New Philharmonia/Boult/EMI - just about everyone else is far behind du Pré's characterful impersonation of the title character. Just a ridiculously good live performance with a well deserved "Brava!" from Boult audible at the end!

Don Juan: Barenboim/CSO/Erato(Warner) - all the CSO virtuosity Reiner has, but warmer and more colorful

Tod und Verklärung: Karajan/BPO/DG - that disc (paired with a deser island performance of Vier letzte Lieder with Janowitz) is possibly Karajan's finest work. His idiosyncratic approach to orchestral sound really pays dividends here while it might be said to be out of place in other repertoire.

[Scarpia]

My favorites are Don Juan, Tod und Verklärung, the Alpensinfonie.  I never found a recording of Don Quixote that worked for me.  Ein Heldenleben would be next, it not quite at the level of my 3 favorites.  Till doesn't do it for me, so far.  Are there really others?

[Sergeant Rock]

I love 'em all. I can even listen to Aus Italien....once a decade 

Five favorites with favorite recordings

Alpensinfonie - Luisi/Dresden (I heard this combo live in 2007: a memorable performance at the Alte Oper Frankfurt)

Also sprach Zarathustra - Sinopoli/New York

Don Juan - Szell/Cleveland

Til Eulenspiegel - Celibidache/Swedish Radio

Tod und Verklärung - Szell/Cleveland


Sarge

[Scarpia]

I love 'em all. I can even listen to Aus Italien....once a decade 

Five favorites with favorite recordings

Alpensinfonie - Luisi/Dresden (I heard this combo live in 2007: a memorable performance at the Alte Oper Frankfurt)

Also sprach Zarathustra - Sinopoli/New York

Don Juan - Szell/Cleveland

Til Eulenspiegel - Celibidache/Swedish Radio

Tod und Verklärung - Szell/Cleveland

Reiner doesn't make the cut?

[MishaK]

Alpensinfonie - Luisi/Dresden (I heard this combo live in 2007: a memorable performance at the Alte Oper Frankfurt)

I heard that same work in the same location with the same orchestra five years earlier with Haitink.    It was a spontaneous fundraiser to fix up the Semperoper following the 2002 Elbe floods which sent the orchestra touring the country when they should have been performing opera at home. Soile Isokoski sang the four last songs.

[Sergeant Rock]

I heard that same work in the same location with the same orchestra five years earlier with Haitink.    Soile Isokoski sang the four last songs.

Cool. My concert began with the "Emperor" and Hélène Grimaud.

Sarge