A No-nonsense Approach
Orchestral music by
Richard Strauss -
heard by
ROBERT ANDERSON'... not quite the whole story.'
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The oddest thing about this CD is the fact that Don Juan makes no appearance on the front of the booklet; so it was a while before I realised I was about to enjoy again the work that proclaimed to me years ago from an open British-Egyptian window near the Suez Canal that I could add another first-rate composer to my tally. Strauss has delighted me ever since; and it was indeed he who first nerved me to take up a baton and conduct his Metamorphosen, agonised tribute to the effectiveness of 'Bomber' Harris and his team of dedicated young crews.
Don Quixote is Strauss at his subtlest. If the deluded Don devotes his innermost thoughts to the cello, Sancho Panza invokes trombone and viola for his apparent common sense. Cervantes declares that Quixote has gone mad before beginning his adventures; music is more merciful, and implies little more than mental fuddledom...
Copyright © 17 August 2011
Robert Anderson,
London UK
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