Strauss: Four Last Songs: Deluxe Hard cover book version

Listen on Presto Music. Free thirty day trial. Find out more.

hers is a potentially magnificent instrument imperfectly wielded...One or two odd vowel sounds apart, the German isn't bad...Near-miraculous engineering gives us phenomenal details...but also... — BBC Music Magazine, February 2015, 2 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 24th Nov 2014
Catalogue No: 4793964
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Length: 68 minutes

Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2014

Strauss, R: Vier letzte Lieder

Work length21:57

$4.40

$6.00

$8.20

Anna Netrebko (soprano)
Staatskapelle Berlin
Daniel Barenboim
Recorded: 2014-08-31
Recording Venue: Philharmonie, Berlin

No. 1 Frühling

Track length3:22

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

No. 2 September

Track length4:44

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

No. 3 Beim Schlafengehen

Track length5:40

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

No. 4 Im Abendrot

Track length8:11

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Strauss, R: Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40

Work length46:22

$6.60

$9.00

$12.30

Wolfram Brandl (violin)
Staatskapelle Berlin
Daniel Barenboim
Recorded: 2014-08-31
Recording Venue: Philharmonie, Berlin

Der Held

Track length4:24

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Des Helden Widersacher

Track length3:31

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Des Helden Gefährtin

Track length12:34

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Des Helden Walstatt

Track length8:43

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Des Helden Friedenswerke

Track length6:05

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Des Helden Weltflucht und Vollendung

Track length11:05

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

About
Reviews
Explore

About

Recording of the Week, Anna Netrebko sings Strauss's Four Last Songs

24th November 2014

Katherine listens to Anna Netrebko's new recording of Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs, with Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin.

• Saving the best for last in the Richard Strauss anniversary 2014. The world’s most luxurious soprano, Anna Netrebko, sings Richard Strauss’ sumptuous Four Last Songs, accompanied by the Staatskapelle Berlin and Daniel Barenboim. An irresistible, all-star combination.

• Netrebko is a phenomenon. The world’s best-selling active soprano and quite simply, the undisputed superstar – “la prima donna assoluta" (New York Post) – of opera today. Known equally for her poise, her sensuality and her voice’s unmistakable color, Strauss’s elegiac Four Last Songs are an exquisite vehicle for her expressive gifts: Netrebko’s first recording of these gorgeous, iconic songs.

• Barenboim: conductor, pianist, humanitarian - perhaps the world’s most complete living musician. A venerated interpreter of Wagner, Mozart, Beethoven and Bruckner, in many ways the music of Richard Strauss represents the apotheosis of Barenboim’s musical ethos. In 1954, the then 11 year-old Barenboim was introduced to his idol, conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler. It was Furtwängler who conducted the world premiere of Strauss’ Four Last Songs in 1949

• The Staatskapelle Berlin, one of Germany’s oldest and most prestigious orchestras boasts a proud Strauss tradition including great performances and recording under the composer himself, as well as under great Straussians Felix Weingartner, Leo Blech, Erich Kleiber, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Otto Klemperer, Clemens Krauss, Hans Knappertsbusch, Joseph Keilberth, Ottmar Suitner and Daniel Barenboim.

• The Staatskapelle and Barenboim then interpret Ein Heldenleben, one of the most vivid and popular tone poems by Strauss, who himself was Generalmusikdirektor of the Staatskapelle a century ago.

Reviews

February 2015

hers is a potentially magnificent instrument imperfectly wielded...One or two odd vowel sounds apart, the German isn't bad...Near-miraculous engineering gives us phenomenal details...but also overblows Daniel Barenboim's most emphatic moments.

5th December 2014

Netrebko sings with an opulence of voice and colour that doubters should be silenced.

January 2015

[Netrebko] radiates a gorgeous tone, beautifully calibrated in mood and inflection...Barenboim [is] thoroughly at one in finding the music's natural contours and the significant points of instrumental detail...he directs a dramatic but reasoned interpretation [of Ein Heldenleben], by no means grandstanding or overinflated but following the musical narrative with clear ideas

24th November 2014

She brings a suitably dusky, veiled tone to the entire cycle, with plenty of colour and presence in the middle and lower reaches of the voice...she doesn’t go in for the very detailed word-painting of some earlier recordings, but her broader approach to text comes with its own pay-offs: the mood of each phrase is exquisitely judged, and everything feels fresh and spontaneous rather than micro-managed.

18th December 2014

[Barenboim's] performance revels in the colours that this fabulous orchestra draws from the score...Barenboim’s account doesn’t swagger as much as some, favouring Wagnerian weightiness instead. It’s the orchestral playing the solo horn and violin especially – that’s the real treat in the Four Last Songs, too.

Strauss: Four Last Songs

Downloads

Contents

Recording of the Week, Anna Netrebko sings Strauss's Four Last Songs

Download queue