R. Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra (CD review)

Also, Don Juan; Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche. Herman Krebbers, violin; Bernard Haitink, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam. Philips UCCP-7034 (Japan).

When Philips released this recording in the early 1970's with Bernard Haitink and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra doing Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra, it was about the same time DG released their recording of Zarathustra by Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. I suppose one can forgive listeners in the day for going for the Karajan disc and rather forgetting about the Haitink. Karajan was, after all, probably the most-popular conductor in the world back then, producing glamorous music with a glamorous orchestra. Besides, it was Karajan who had brought new life to the score with his earlier, Vienna recording of the score for Decca when Stanley Kubrick featured it in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Still and all, it was the Haitink recording I found more involving, equally well performed, and better recorded; and it remains a favorite of mine to this day.

German composer and conductor Richard Strauss (1864-1949) wrote Also Sprach Zarathustra in 1896, his inspiration for the symphonic poem a philosophical novel by the German philosopher and poet Friedrich Nietzsche. Strauss divided his score into nine segments, naming the sections after various chapters of Nietzsche's book.

However, the listener should not put too much stock in the literal meanings of the music but instead enjoy each section for its figurative spirit. In fact, Strauss himself, whom some people criticized at the time for trying to put Nietzsche's philosophy into music, said, "I did not intend to write philosophical music, or to portray in music Nietzsche's great work. I meant to convey by means of music an idea of the development of the human race from its origin, through the various phases of its evolution, religious and scientific, up to Nietzsche's idea of the superman. The whole symphonic poem is intended as my homage to the genius of Nietzsche, which found its greatest exemplification in his book, Thus Spake Zarathustra." In other words, one should enjoy the music for itself and not as some sort of musical distillation of Nietzsche's ideas.

Anyway, the nine sections are "Einleitung, oder Sonnenaufgang" (Introduction, or Sunrise); "Von den Hinterweltlern" (Of Those in Backwaters); "Von der großen Sehnsucht" (Of the Great Longing); "Von den Freuden und Leidenschaften" (Of Joys and Passions); "Das Grablied" (The Song of the Grave); "Von der Wissenschaft" (Of Science and Learning); "Der Genesende" (The Convalescent); "Das Tanzlied" (The Dance Song); and "Nachtwandlerlied" (Song of the Night Wanderer).

And what does Haitink do with the music? He brings to it the same straightforward, unfussy approach he always does, an approach that has served him well for a remarkably long time. It is an approach that serves the music above all, with none of the grand gestures of a Karajan yet with an endearing and engaging simplicity that puts the score foremost. And as well as the Berlin Philharmonic played for Karajan, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra matched them in refinement, richness, sonority, and precision.

Haitink takes us gracefully from one extreme to the next, from the gentlest, most tender moments to the most massive of climaxes. It all sounds beautifully nuanced under this conductor--nothing forced and nothing left to chance. Even the "Science and Learning" section, which I find the least interesting, comes off with a greater degree of lyric passion with Haitink than with most anyone else, and there's a wonderful lilt in the dance number that follows. And so it goes.

Bernard Haitink
Maestro Haitink handles the couplings well, too, with plenty of flair but little of the sloppy melodrama we hear from some other conductors. Don Juan carries all the swagger you could want and reminds us again where Erich Wolfgang Korngold and John Williams probably got their inspiration, while Till Eulenspiegel maintains a playfully heady demeanor throughout.

Philips recorded Zarathustra and Don Juan in April 1973, and Till Eulenspiegel in December 1982, all three at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Although the recordings are still available on the now-defunct Philips label in a two-disc collection (442-281-2), the recording I reviewed was a single disc from Philips Japan, reissued in 2005. What's more, from what I understand, Decca Records have also rereleased the recordings on a single disc under their own label.

For me, the Seventies were a kind of Golden Age in recording, a bit like the Fifties with RCA "Living Stereo" and Mercury "Living Presence" but in the later decade with EMI and Philips. In the Seventies, while the folks at EMI were recording Andre Previn and the London Symphony and Louis Fremaux and the City of Birmingham Symphony with excellent transparency, balance, and range, the Philips engineers were recording Haitink and the Concertgebouw with a wonderful sense of ambience, depth, and spaciousness. The present recording displays these latter qualities to fine advantage, the Concertgebouw ensemble never sounding richer or more resplendent.

The sound has an all-enveloping sense of place, as though home listeners were actually in the concert hall with the orchestra. Yet there is never any distracting resonance or reverberation, just a natural, realistic response, with enough detail to satisfy the most-demanding audiophile. There is never any brightness, forwardness, or edginess; nor is there any undue softness to the sound. All of it, in fact, is nigh-well perfect, the excellence of the sonics complementing the excellence of the performance.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click below:


Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

Readers with polite, courteous, helpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@gmail.com

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa