Richard Strauss' Don Juan Op. 20, played by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of its chief conductor Cristian Măcelaru. Recorded live on 08.06.2024 in the Kölner Philharmonie.

Richard Strauss - Don Juan Op. 20

WDR Symphony Orchestra
Cristian Măcelaru, conductor

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Introduction to the work:
Two heavenly strikers meet: Don Juan, the imaginary seducer of women, and Richard Strauss, the aspiring young composer and conductor. Strauss is at the beginning of his career. His talent and ambition will take him far, says the 24-year-old's self-assurance. The only question is: how to climb the career ladder as quickly as possible? In 1888, at any rate, he was dissatisfied with his position: he hoped to “swap the oppressive atmosphere of a 3rd Kapellmeister for a sphere of activity better suited to his abilities”. That is the conductor's side of the story. On the composer's side, he has something unusual in his quiver: a tone poem that he knows he can conquer the world with. Strauss sees in himself the tone poet who will be able to solve the symphonic problem of the time. Initially, he had the idea of combining the venerable genre of the symphony with Franz Liszt's pioneering invention of the symphonic poem. The result was the 4-movement program symphony “From Italy” in 1886. Two years later, he considered this attempt to be outdated: “Away with the dreary four-movement formula, from which no new content has sprouted since the IXth [...]. I too began to create in the sonata form, now I have [...] broken with it completely and have written two great symphonic poems: Macbeth and Don Juan [...] I have turned completely to the one-movement form”.
While the form of “Macbeth” still causes Strauss difficulties, the composition of “Don Juan” is almost a thorough march. The heavenly striker reaches for the stars. The tone poem is nothing less than a stroke of genius, with which Strauss became famous around the world virtually overnight: exuberant sound imagination, coupled with innovative and masterful orchestration. The dramatic poem “Don Juan” by Nikolaus Lenau served as his inspiration. He prefaces his score with excerpts from it, beginning with the words: “I would like to traverse the magic circle, the immeasurably wide one, of many charming and beautiful women in a storm of pleasure, at the mouth of the last to die of a kiss.”

Text: Otto Hagedorn