Thomas Søndergård & RSNO - Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, Der Rosenkavalier Suite - The Scotsman

There’s warmth, men­ace and crys­talline pre­ci­sion in this new record­ing of Richard Strauss’s Ein Helden­leben that beau­ti­fully cap­tures the tone poem’s af­fec­tion and sar­donic mock­ery in equal mea­sure. It’s a re­in­force­ment of the dy­namic part­ner­ship emerg­ing in live per­for­mance be­tween the RSNO and its new mu­sic direc­tor Thomas Søn­dergård.

No­tice at once the even­ness and full­ness of or­ches­tral tone, out of which de­li­cious streams of so­los emerge with ease and agility. Søn­dergård gives the nar­ra­tive nat­u­ral space to un­fold, from the fre­netic del­i­ca­cies of Strauss’ do­mes­tic­ity, or the heat of the bat­tle­field, to the seren­ity and fi­nal tri­umph of the hero’s re­treat. The wild flam­boy­ance of the Der Rosenkava­lier Suite is like a sugar-filled pud­ding to the meaty sump­tu­ous­ness of the main course.