Also Sprach Zarathustra/Tod Und Verklarung

Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly

The dream team of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly return with over 85 minutes of some of the greatest orchestral music ever written. Sonically spectacular recording opening with Also sprach Zarathustra: the music made famous by 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Continuing the critically-acclaimed Lucerne/Chailly partnership launched by the world premiere recording of Stravinsky’s Funeral Song. (0028948325627)

Right from the perfectly-judged faltering rhythm from muted violins and violas in the first bar, Chailly takes such care to shape each phrase, and there’s a dark, sombre richness to the woodwind tone that is most evocative, even in the quietest of chords. The orchestral sound is magnificent, from shimmering strings, to majestic trumpets and biting trombones. The appearance of the Transfiguration theme feels like a well-earned moment of arrival, whilst the final serene chords are, after all the turbulence that has occurred, an exquisite way to end a quite superb performance.

Strauss, R:
 Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30
 Salome
 Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Op. 28
 Tod und Verklärung, Op. 24

"The playing, predictably, is stunningly good, the performances superbly taut, concentrated and responsive. Till Eulenspiegel perhaps comes off best of all: rarely has the work sounded so dazzlingly fresh and brilliant. The strings have a razor-like sharpness, the brass real bite...The humour, meanwhile, comes off all the more vividly for Chailly’s straight-man direction."
Gramophone Magazine - November 2019