Richard Strauss - Fritz Busch & Erich Kleiber

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, op. 28

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Erich Kleiber

(Telefunken, recorded 1930)

Der Rosenkavalier - Walzer

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / Erich Kleiber

(Telefunken, recorded 1934)

Don Juan, op. 20

London Philharmonic Orchestra / Fritz Busch

(Victor, recorded 1936 by HMV)

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Here are three recordings of music from Richard Strauss. I keep making new versions of these recordings. Why do I do this? The first reason I do this is not just due to the sound of these recordings or my "personal musical preferences" - but because of somewhat wider concerns having to do with the human qualities of the expressive content of these works (content which is impossible to measure outside how these human qualities make us feel). As a result of being addressed by this music in human terms as human beings, we become more human because the music shows its uncompromising solidarity with who we are as humans. Such demonstrations of human solidarity no longer exist in our world as before and remain only as the products and inherited insights of people who are no longer living. Indeed, the word "solidarity" itself has vanished from general usage - and no one any more seems to know what solidarity means - or even used to mean. Nevertheless, this "lost" knowledge of how to make music "alive" so that we feel more alive when we hear it now - this is the miracle such music shares with all great art which, in spite of being in some cases thousands of years old, never does become "old." Such art, then, constitutes what we need more than anything else to survive in a present which discards all human qualities - all human solidarity - in favor of measurable material values and relations, i.e., essentially dead objects regulated by power relations calculated to keep people apart in a perpetual state of dehumanized isolation. This is the primary reason I see for the repeated attempt at making as clear an image as possible of these "old sounds." The second reason is based on the observation that any attempt to "change the world for the better" is doomed to complete failure (as current events are demonstrating) without first basing such an attempt on establishing human solidarity with others - by fostering the human qualities I've touched on above - which, not by accident, all great art exists for the purpose of promoting and defending.

All great art unites people in human solidarity with one another outside national, political, social and economic boundaries. National, political, social and economic boundaries, to the contrary, divide and separate everyone from everyone else - foremost cut humans off from their own humanity - and create nothing outside preparations for war, misery and destruction. Unfortunately, the latter now happens everywhere at once.

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78rpm transfers. Includes cover,
labels and notes.