[Kreisler jr]

5 choices are very few for a composer with 3 of the 6 or 8 most famous 20th century operas. Till is very popular, together with Don Juan and T&V the best known of the tone poems.

 

[Scherzi Cat]

My first two votes go to a couple of the most popular, Also Sprach Zarathustra, and Eine Alpensinfonie. Then my love of the concertante form guides my next two votes, the Oboe Concerto, and Don Quixote with it's featured cello and viola. Finally my "other" vote is for the Symphony for Wind Instruments. It may not be the type of work that Strauss is known for, but I find it very appealing. I'm always drawn to the sonorities of wind instruments, especially in ensemble, like Mozart's "Gran Partita" and Dvorak's "Wind Serenade". Thank you, larold, for bring my attention to this wonderful work and the composer's other works for wind ensemble.

His least well-known ouevre is his works that mimic his hero Mozart. Among others he wrote a range of wind music on Mozart's model, almost all of which is wonderful, well written, and full of lasting tune-memories. People think they know Strauss because they saw Rosenkavalier and/or heard the Alpine Symphony in concert but he has -- like Brahms -- a private or introverted side. Those are his Mozartean compositions.

 

[HenryPenfold]

I've edited my post because it looks weird in English, so I've put the titles in their proper German.

Shame I had to leave out Don Juan and Till Eulenslpiegels Lustige Streiche

1. Ein Heldenleben
2. Vier Letze Lieder
3. Elektra
3. Salome
5. Tod und Verklärung

Favourite recordings:

1. Any one of the Karajan BPO performances
2. Karajan Janowitz BPO, closely followed by: HvK/Anna Tomowa-Sintow/BPO and Lucia Popp/Tennstedt/LPO
3. Sawallisch/Eva Marton (Elektra)
3. Culshaw/Solti/Nilsson (Salome)
5. Karajan BPO DG 1973 analogue (listened to Vasily Petrenko, Oslo Philharmonic via Qobuz streaming this morning and was blown away)

 

[starthrower]

My wife and I are listening to a couple of discs from the Kempe box this evening. These CDs sound very good! The strings of the Staatskapelle Dresden sound beautiful!

 

[haziz]

1. Horn Concerto No. 1
2. The first 30 seconds of Thus Spake Zarathustra. The rest of the composition seems to last 5 hours and bores me to tears.

And that's about it, or at least what I can think of at this moment. Not a big fan overall.

 

[Shoskofiev]

An indispensable composer for any serious lover of late-Romantic music in my opinion. There is so much to choose from. I wouldn't say the greatest works, but my favorites, so:

Don Quixote
Eine Alpensinfonie
Also sprach Zarathustra
Ariadne auf Naxos
Metamorphosen

 

[Neo Romanza]

I've edited my post because it looks weird in English, so I've put the titles in their proper German.

Shame I had to leave out Don Juan and Till Eulenslpiegels Lustige Streiche

1. Ein Heldenleben
2. Vier Letze Lieder
3. Elektra
3. Salome
5. Tod und Verklärung

Favourite recordings:

1. Any one of the Karajan BPO performances
2. Karajan Janowitz BPO, closely followed by: HvK/Anna Tomowa-Sintow/BPO and Lucia Pop/Tennstedt/LPO
3. Sawallisch/Eva Marton (Elektra)
3. Culshaw/Solti/Nilsson (Salome)
5. Karajan BPO DG 1973 analogue (listened to Vasily Petrenko, Oslo Philharmonic via Qobuz streaming this morning and was blown away)

Have you heard Celibidache's performance of Tod und Verklärung? It is magnificent! Another favorite of mine would be Tennstedt/LPO (coupled with one of my favorite Vier letzte Lieder performances with Lucia Popp).

 

[Neo Romanza]

1. Horn Concerto No. 1
2. The first 30 seconds of Thus Spake Zarathustra. The rest of the composition seems to last 5 hours and bores me to tears.

And that's about it, or at least what I can think of at this moment. Not a big fan overall.

Wow...okay, thanks for stopping by! A shame you even bothered with a list at all, especially since you, by your own admission, have no affinity for the composer at all.

 

[HenryPenfold]

Have you heard Celibidache's performance of Tod und Verklärung? It is magnificent! Another favorite of mine would be Tennstedt/LPO (coupled with one of my favorite Vier letzte Lieder performances with Lucia Popp).

Yes, I have the Celibidache CD. It's a great performance, but I still have a preference for the Karajan. The Tennstedt/LPO/Popp &c cd is a firm favourite, too.

 

[Doublestring]

1. Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche
2. Ariadne auf Naxos
3. Also sprach Zarathustra
4. Salomé
5. Der Rosenkavalier

His earlier, more humorist work appeals more to me than his later, over-orchestrated works.

 

[Kreisler jr]

5. Tod und Verklärung

5. Karajan BPO DG 1973 analogue

Is that the one coupled with Metamorphosen and Janowitz 4 LL?

 

[HenryPenfold]

Is that the one coupled with Metamorphosen and Janowitz 4 LL?

yes, but I think it has been released in other combinations down the years

 

[haziz]

Wow...okay, thanks for stopping by! A shame you even bothered with a list at all, especially since you, by your own admission, have no affinity for the composer at all.

I went back yesterday and re-listened to his second Horn Concerto. I would also add that to the list to accompany the first, but you are right, I have little affinity for Richard Strauss' music.

 

[Neo Romanza]

I went back yesterday and re-listened to his second Horn Concerto. I would also add that to the list to accompany the first, but you are right, I have little affinity for Richard Strauss' music.

His Horn Concerto No. 2 is my favorite of the two. It was dedicated to the memory of his father (who played horn with the Munich Court Opera and was also a professor if memory serves me correctly). It's a gorgeous work and features one of those "unmasking" moments in Strauss' music. This moment occurs towards the end of the first movement --- so poignant.

 

[Xisten267]

Added a list of the top ten most voted works of the poll in the first post. I'll keep updating the numbers of the list as new votes appear.

 

[Gallus]

I'm not as familiar with Strauss' later operas as I would like, so I don't mean my choice to be definitive whatsoever, but I voted for Zarathustra, Salome, Elektra, Metamorphosen and the Five Last Songs. I think my favourite out of all of those would be Salome: an absolute firecracker of an opera, condensed but astonishingly powerful. Everyone who is a fan of opera should watch this performance:

 

[CnC Bartok]

I have a love-hate relationship with Strauss, sometimes seeing him as the best thing since sliced bread, and at other times as having the same effect as a couple of sleeping pills. The ones I went for, which have really got to me more often than not, were:

Metamorphosen
Four Last Songs
Salome
Ein Heldenleben
Sinfonia Domestica

I like the last one because, even if it can seem one of his least memorable works, it is actually incredibly sweet, positive and warm.

 

[hammeredklavier]

some amazing theatrics by Charbonnet

 

[SanAntone]

Metamorphosen
Piano Quartet in C Minor, Op. 13
Four Last Songs
Der Morgen
Oboe Concerto

 

[Eva Yojimbo]

This is probably the most difficult of these "5 greatest" polls for me because I've always considered R. Strauss not just a great composer but a consistently great one with many works I'd "rate" in that 8-9/10 range, which makes selecting "greatest" more or less picking favorites among what I consider are equals. In the end, I had to go with three operas that are all among my favorites in the genre: Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Die Frau ohne Schatten. Here's what I wrote about them in my Top Operas List:

Die Frau ohne Schatten - The libretto is like someone stuck Wagner and Verisimo into a blender and had a serial killer sew the mangled remains back together. The music is as complicated—bordering on the nonsensical—as the libretto, but has a black magic power to it, with Strauss conjuring demonic legions of sound from the orchestra that writhes and swirls like expressionistic, moving Hieronymus Bosch paintings. The result is a dark and cryptic fairytale that one awakens from like a fevered nightmare.

Ariadne auf Naxos - The first half takes place “backstage” as tensions flair when a "high-minded" opera seria troupe is forced to share the stage with a "low-class" comedia dell'arte troupe; while the second half features the opera the first half is fussing about. It's both a love letter to and satire of operatic musical traditions, and Strauss has his cake and eats it too with his opera-within-an-opera, finding a place where comedy and drama, poignant expression and vocal acrobatics can trip side-by-side.

Der Rosenkavalier - After the horrors of Salome and Elektra, Strauss channels his inner Mozart (and the OTHER Struass) for his most Viennese opera, complete with an eminently hummable waltz theme. Ostensibly a comedic play of a lecherous Baron getting his comeuppance, it transforms it into an existential exploration of transience, with Strauss making it a glorious showcase for the trio of female voices and much of his most euphoric music with kaleidoscopic orchestral colors and textures.

I had more difficulty selecting just two works from his non-operatic output. I ultimately went with Metamorphosen and Ein Heldenleben, but I just as easily could've gone with Don Juan, Death and Transfiguration, Zarathustra, Alpensinfonie, or Four Last Songs as I love all of these works.