Strauss, R: Don Quixote, Op. 35

Fabio Luisi and Staatskapelle Dresden return with another definitive recording of music by Richard Strauss. This album includes three of his great tone poems, Don Juan, Aus Italien and Don Quixote.

A rarity from the British Library Sound Archive - Mstislav Rostropovich in a dramatic live account of Richard Strauss's Don Quixote given during an early visit to the London Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in 1964.

Rostropovich only recorded the work eleven years later in 1975 in a studio version.

Haydn's Cello Concerto in D from 1965 follows on Rostropovich's account of the earlier Concerto in C (BBCL 4198-2) which was given excellent reviews at the time of it's release.

Beginning with two rascally characters - the deluded Don Quixote and the prankster Till Eulenspiegel, this set includes remarkable recordings from the catalogues of Philips and Deutsche Grammophon, with some recordings appearing on CD internationally for the first time - Haitink's "Don Quixote", Jochum's blazing "Till Eulenspiegel" and shimmering Rosenkavalier Waltzes (both sets) and Munchinger's recording of the sextet from Capriccio. Sinopoli's "Metamorphosen", previously coupled with Bruckner's Eighth symphony and long unavailable, finds its rightful place in this Strauss collection. In addition to the Rosenkavalier and Capriccio moments, we have other orchestral music from Strauss's operas, all conducted by Sinopoli and concluding with one of the most exciting and thrillingly-recorded versions of the Dance of the Seven Veils.

These performances were recorded in Munich in 1957 and 1958.

The Greek born Dmitri Mitropoulos (1896-1960) was a musical phenomenon, composing at the age of 11, a virtuoso pianist whose live performances and recording of Prokofiev's Piano Concert No.3 caused a sensation, and lastly as a conductor who led the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra from 1937 to 1949, a seminal period in the orchestra's history before moving on as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic from 1949 to a shared conductorship with his protégé, Leonard Bernstein from 1957/1958 to be replaced by the latter in 1959. Mitropoulos was by this time conducting regularly with the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Concertgebouw and the Kolner Rundfunk-Sinfonie Orchester before ill health finally caused his death in 1960 while conducting the La Scala orchestra in Mahler's Symphony No.3 Mitropoulos was a superb conductor of Richard Strauss as his regular Salzburg concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic testify.

The WDR live studio recordings use only the original masters and the sound is sensational, particularly in Strauss's powerful and atmospheric Also Sprach Zarathustra. Don Quixote demonstrates Mitropoulos's acute sense of tone painting and characterization.

This is the second Mitropoulos CD sourced from WDR in Cologne, the first being a coupling of Mendelssohn's Symphonies Nos 3 "Scottish" and No.5 "Reformation" which received excellent reviews. This is the first authorised release of these recordings.