Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen, composed in 1945 as he contemplated the ruins of Germany and Austria at the end of World War II, is one of the most popular works of 20th century orchestral music. Listeners have lots of versions to choose from, but several factors came together to place this one on the classical best-seller charts in the spring of 2022. One is certainly that the Sinfonia of London and conductor John Wilson offer an unusually good Metamorphosen, with a clean sound, long-range momentum, and the sensation of ...
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Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen, composed in 1945 as he contemplated the ruins of Germany and Austria at the end of World War II, is one of the most popular works of 20th century orchestral music. Listeners have lots of versions to choose from, but several factors came together to place this one on the classical best-seller charts in the spring of 2022. One is certainly that the Sinfonia of London and conductor John Wilson offer an unusually good Metamorphosen, with a clean sound, long-range momentum, and the sensation of underlying grief that is necessary to the work. Another is a matter of lucky timing; Wilson and the orchestra made this recording in the summer of 2021, before the invasion of Ukraine was on anyone's mind, but the most important factor is that there are multiple metamorphoses here. The Strauss work is often taken as a memorial for German culture and the World War II dead, but it also, as noted in the perceptive notes by Gavin Plumley, carries hints of the world that had been...
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