Originally published on January 13
This is the third recording featuring Zubin Mehta leading Richard Strauss’s Symphonia Domestica, following his LA Phil version for Decca, http://www.colinscolumn.com/many-happy-returns-to-zubin-mehta-85-today/, and a January 1988 London Philharmonic concert account, http://www.colinscolumn.com/zubin-mehta-the-london-philharmonic/.
This Munich performance (November 2021, sharing then with George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children) is expressive, affectionate and vivid, a page-turner of a narrative created, every note and nuance afforded significance, for this ‘day in the life of the Strausses’ as Domestica might be termed, and superbly played and recorded, different to but every bit as alluring and compelling as George Szell’s CBS/Sony taping or, away from competitive library versions, the Lorin Maazel Hamburg film I added to the Column recently. http://www.colinscolumn.com/lorin-maazel-conducts-richard-strauss-till-eulenspiegel-performances-from-december-6-1986/.
Certainly, Mehta’s time-taken approach glows with incident, and could well be a revelation to Domestica’s doubters (and there are some) as to how much richness there is in this music, the Munich Philharmonic’s response suggesting that every member of the large orchestra Strauss calls for were totally committed to the score and realising Mehta’s lavish traversal of it and in which characterisation and clarity are the overriding ingredients, all of a symphonic piece. MPHIL0026 (with applause removed) is released on January 20.
https://www.warnerclassics.com/release/strauss-sinfonia-domestica