Audition: Strauss - Ein Heldenleben - Andreas Nelsons, Gewandhaus Orchestra, Leipzig

 

Audition: Strauss - Ein Heldenleben

12 May 2022

Gewandhaus Orchestra, Leipzig (pp)

Andris Nelsons

This recording is part of a large set of Strauss orchestral works conducted by Nelson with this orchestra and the Boston Symphony. Perhaps DG’s attempt to challenge EMI’’s expansive survey of these works with Kempe in the 1970s.

Soundwise, it’s OK.  Much of the time it sounds like a clean studio recording but suffers from the familiar problems of the vagaries of live recording and is certainly not well rehearsed. These lapses might well have been fixed in the edit but they weren’t.  It’s also important to note the audience is silent - if indeed they were there. In truth I think the Boston orchestra may have done a better job: there are some woeful slips here and I think the Boston strings would have brought a more compelling tone. 

The recording is pretty good though not without instruments dropping out of the mix and as ever the Battle was a struggle.  When it comes to Strauss’ wide, diaphanous palette I hear the tenor horn in other recordings and the low percussion and harps often slip off the sound picture.  There is little of Nelson’s noisy encouragement & shuffling which he has either stopped or the alert engineers have removed.

The violin soloist was Frank Michael Erben who was fine and whilst well equipped technically, his reading didn’t reveal the full of the energy that Frau Strauss was supposed to exhibit.

Nelsons is generally brisk, and sometimes sloppy, especially in those full orchestral climaxes in the battle and thereafter.  He manages the story pretty well, but without a great emotional attachment which many of us like with this hero & heroine.  As many have reflected, this symphony/concerto for orchestra is intentionally ambiguous not least given the composer’s reputation for a comedic grandiloquence.  It’s easy to take it as a showpiece or a frippery of a bored composer - getting his own back on his critics and setting things up for his grand reveal of Strauss family life.

Nelsons has recorded the work before in a 2010 release during his time with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.  Maybe his best result will be with his next recording - a third recording would put him in the company of Ormandy, Karajan and Strauss himself.  The work has had 16 major recordings since the turn of the Millenium more than the any two decades since the 1920s.

Overall the interpretation is hardly characterful or interesting - there are some good, some gaudy and too many untidy climaxes.  Nelsons is clumsy at times, lacking nuance and the Gewanhaus orchestra is strained, not as sophisticated as its competitors, add in the ignored dynamics and giving short shrift at the great moments with a need to just move on.  There is beauty too and I doubt the audience had a bad time.

Having said that there are some lovely moments of full-blooded playing and fine string sound to match.

This is not a recommendation in my book

Recording - 6 out of 10

Interpretation - 6 out of 10

Performance - 6 out of 10