R Strauss
Ein Heldenleben
Philharmonia Orchestra/Santtu-Matias Rouvali
Signum Classics SIGCD922 | 50:12 mins
Santtu-Matias Rouvali’s interpretation of Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) may be on the long side at 50 minutes, but it is rarely lagging. The extra time in the Philharmonia chief conductor’s vision comes partly in the wildly cataclysmic battle scene between the ‘hero’ (assumed to be, at least in part, Strauss himself) and his ‘adversaries’ (oh those critics!) in ‘Des Helden Walstatt’. That stretched tempo gives room for the thrilling high dramatics Rouvali encourages to depict this epic set-to.
The Philharmonia etch all the colours of Strauss’s swirling and unashamedly heroic opening theme – in key as well as in thrust – with joyously defined energy. The ‘adversaries’, introduced in ‘Des Helden Widersacher’, and interrupting the flow throughout, are here comic grotesques, delineated with absolute ego-skewering precision by the Philharmonia instrumentalists (although whether the hero’s or the critics’ is moot). Leader Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay exploits every last ravishing phrase as the Hero’s glorious ‘companion’ – ‘Des Helden Gefährtin’ – or Strauss’s wife Pauline, anecdotally.
Throughout, the sound, both of the orchestra and the recording quality, is superb, the former never fudged in the tapestry and gloriously expansive. As the returning echoes of the adversaries are finally laid to rest in the last moments, Visontay’s violin rises ever higher as our Hero departs in what is one of the loveliest dénouements in music. There is perhaps a slight breaking of flow here in the overtly-characterised violin phrasing and the doggedly insistent rumble in the bass, but it bears repeated listening.
