Renaud Capuçon Celebrates the Music of Richard Strauss
The violinist presents a selection of his favourite works by Strauss
The compilation includes chamber pieces such as the Violin Sonata,
Piano Quartet, Capriccio sextet and Metamorphosen
Capuçon is joined by the Wiener Symphoniker and Petr Popelka in the Violin Concerto,
and performs Ein Heldenleben as leader of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, with Seiji Ozawa
Listen to the second movement – Improvisation: Andante cantabile – of the Violin Sonata here
“As leader of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, I got completely immersed
in Strauss’s amazing music. I realise now it was such a privilege”
Renaud Capuçon
Violinist Renaud Capuçon pays homage to one of his favourite composers with a compilation of chamber and orchestral works from the innovative late-Romantic soundworld of Richard Strauss. Set for release digitally and on 3 CDs, the album is bookended by a new recording of the youthful Violin Concerto, which Capuçon performs with the Wiener Symphoniker and Petr Popelka, and a reading of Ein Heldenleben (“A Hero’s Life”) from 2000, in which the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester was led by Capuçon and conducted by Seiji Ozawa. Renaud has also chosen to include the Violin Sonata, Piano Quartet, Sextet from Capriccio and string septet arrangement of Metamorphosen, as well as the Daphne-Etude for solo violin.
His Richard Strauss album will be released on 31 January 2025, with the central movement of the Violin Sonata available to stream or download from 6 December 2024. This will be followed by the Scherzo from the Piano Quartet on 3 January and, on the same day as the album, the Lento, ma non troppo second movement of the Violin Concerto. On Saturday 7 December 2024, meanwhile, Renaud will be among the stellar array of artists performing at the Notre-Dame de Paris grand reopening concert.
“It’s a bit quirky, but I love it,” says Renaud Capuçon of Strauss’s Violin Concerto in D minor, which the composer wrote in 1882, when he was just 17. The work is relatively seldom performed – perhaps, suggests Capuçon, because it is “very difficult, comparable to Schumann’s Violin Concerto”. Traditional in form, the work is full of colour – from the dramatic opening Allegro to the mercurial finale, via the lyrical central slow movement – and reveals Strauss’s early mastery of orchestration. Under the baton of Petr Popelka, Capuçon and the Wiener Symphoniker establish a close dialogue, capturing every change in mood.
Recorded in the violinist’s own youth, the interpretation of Ein Heldenleben included on the album comes from Capuçon’s days as leader of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. He has fond memories of discovering Strauss’s orchestral works with the late Seiji Ozawa. The solo violin comes to the fore in the third of this tone-poem’s six sections, which depicts “The Hero’s Companion” (aka Strauss’s wife, Pauline de Ahna).
Among Capuçon’s choice of chamber works is one solo piece, the delightful Daphne-Etude, which Strauss based on a motif from his opera Daphne and dedicated to his grandson Christian. Capuçon performs the virtuosic Violin Sonata in E flat major of 1887 with pianist Guillaume Bellom; the duo are then joined by viola player Paul Zientara and cellist Julia Hagen in the Piano Quartet of 1883–84. All three young players have been mentored by Capuçon as part of his Beau Soir Productions initiative.
The album also features chamber music from Strauss’s maturity. In the string sextet from the opening of his opera Capriccio (1943) the composer skilfully manages to both highlight the individual sounds of the different instruments and blend them together. In a more sombre vein, Metamorphosen (1945) dates from the final months of the war. Capuçon and friends play the original septet version, as arranged in the 1990s by cellist Rudolf Leopold. These two works were recorded live at the 2022 Salzburg Festival, with Christoph Koncz (violin), Gérard Caussé and Veronika Hagen (viola), Julia Hagen and Clemens Hagen (cello) and, for Metamorphosen, Alois Posch (double bass).
