Bruckner Orchester Linz, Peter Guth – The Essence Of Viennese Music (2004) [SACD / Chesky – SACD255]
Title: Bruckner Orchester Linz, Peter Guth – The Essence Of Viennese Music (2004)
Genre: Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC
The full title of this disc is “The Essence of Viennese Music – opera, operetta and dance..”. Rather cumbersome, but a fair description of the contents. It is played by an orchestra from Linz, Austria’s third city, with a conductor (Peter Guth) who specialises in music of Johann Strauss II and a pair of excellent young soloists in soprano Edith Lienbacher and tenor Herbert Lippert. While its programme contains many of the expected Viennese lollipops, it goes beyond the merely predictable, and the producers have come up with a diverse and very entertaining concert. It opens with the younger Strauss’ Polka schnell ‘Thunder and lightning’, given a lively and bracing performance, particularly from the percussion, who are spread along the back of the auditorium. A duet from Strauss’ Vienna Blood follows (Das eine kann ich nicht verzeih’n), performed by the fresh-voiced soloists with a fine sense of style and lilt, aided by their excellent diction and characterful woodwind support; their music duet seductively into what we know as the Waltz ‘Vienna Blood’. The balance is rather odd here, though; distractingly the voices sing at one another from either side of the wide stage instead of interacting while standing close together as one would normally expect.
The everlasting subject matters of the stage drama are, to name a few: differences of cultures, the struggle between good and evil, and of course love, jealousy and intrigue. The Viennese Operetta centers on these themes, primarily on the tension in relations between the aristocracy and commoners. Strauss playfully demonstrates this in his comedies of errors and royal festivities; Lehár on the other hand tends to stay close to the drama and tragedy between the wealthy and poor, at times even with a renunciation of love; as for Kálmán, his works are full of ebullient vitality in a delirium of oblivion, set during the time when the monarchy perished, on the threshold of a new era. – Peter Guth