Amazonレビュー
Strauss's
Alpine Symphony, completed in 1915, is both a programmatic description of a mountain climb and a symphony in structure and thematic development. It represents a major challenge for conductors and the massive orchestral forces who must meld program and structure while giving full due to the pantheistic nature-worshiping subtext, and the wide emotional range, from a mysterious "Night" opening to the descent in a thunderstorm. That may be why it often fails to come off in performance, although old Strauss hands like
Kempe,
von Karajan,
Solti, and
Mehta have given the work its due, with the latter two aided by spectacular engineering. Thielemann doesn't match them in this live concert performance with a great Strauss orchestra, partly because of skewed balances and muffed details, but mainly because his sprawling interpretation neglects the work's structural elements. The
Rosenkavalier Suite also suffers from a heavy hand at the helm, making it disjointed and episodic. Two-dimensional sonics don't help, either.
--Dan Davis