Music Director Leon Botstein to Honor Richard Strauss' 150th Anniversary at ASO Opening Celebration, 10/15
By: Matt Smith Sep. 24, 2014
Few marriages in classical music have been more mused upon than that of Richard and Pauline Strauss. Despite her disappointment with her own musical career, and her famously sharp-tongued barbs that were frequently directed at Strauss himself and remarked upon by the likes of Thomas Beecham and Alma Mahler, the marriage not only endured but was a rock for them both. At Strauss's funeral, Pauline fell to her knees in racking cries. With all the many celebrations of Strauss's 150th anniversary in 2014, ASO music director Leon Botstein shines a light upon this central theme in the composer's life, and in his music.
Strauss seems to have understood how fascinating his family dynamic was, and drew upon it for inspiration in many of his works. Three of them, rarely heard, will be played at Carnegie Hall on October 15 for the program "Marriage Actually" - on one level great music, on another a kind of musical reality show as Strauss might have seen it! But there is nothing trivial about these works. The Four Symphonic Interludes from Intermezzo bring together the most celebrated passages from an opera that he based on the real-life shock of Pauline wrongly accusing him of adultery. Next, the left-handed piano concerto, Parergon on Symphonia Domestica, a marvellous and almost never-performed piece, plays on a theme from the Symphonia Domesticathat represents the illness of the Strauss' son. And finally the Symphonia Domestica itself, the symphony that depicts 24 hours of life at home with the Strauss family and that here returns to the scene of its first performance - Carnegie Hall.Leon Botstein's interpretations of Strauss's music have been much praised. Of last season's Carnegie Hall concert of the opera Feuersnot, the New York Times wrote, "The orchestra played...with relish and a luscious sound...Mr Botstein shaped (the waltzes) with snarky panache." Of his live recording ofDie agyptische Helena, starring Deborah Voigt, BBC Music Magazinecommented, "In the devoted hands of Mr.Botstein, Strauss's score shimmers." This concert also brings the New York debut, in the Parergon, of the esteemed English pianist Mark Bebbington. Mr.Bebbington, who has the rare accolade of seven consecutive five-star reviews from BBC Music Magazine, has made more than 30 recordings and studied this particular work with the late, great Strauss scholar Norman Del Mar (who himself played Strauss's music under the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham several times, with the composer looking on).
"Oh well, and now I am supposed to become the model housewife" - Pauline de Ahna, on being proposed to by Richard Strauss
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