OT: on a Staatskapelle Dresden binge!

[barry guerrero]

I love the Staatskapelle Dresden. They have the clarity of the Berlin Phil., but without sounding nearly so slick as the BPO can sometimes sound. They also lack the excessive darkness and weightiness that the Vienna Phil. can sometimes be plagued with. It's probably the excellent acoustics, but the Dresdeners get timbres and balances just right. Here are some recent acquisitions that I whole-heartily endorse:

Dvorak sym's. 8/9 with James Levine (DG). I burnt a copy from a local library copy. This is now out-of-print in the U.S. The 9th is particularly good.

Elgar sym. #1/two Berlioz overtures (Profil) with Colin Davis. I got this cheap through Amazon. I'm not a big fan of E1 (I greatly prefer the 2nd), but the Stattskapelle play this as though it had just been written specifically for them. You'd think that all of England were located around Dresden. Seriously, this is far better than ANY British recording I've yet to hear of E1 (and that's not a put-down to England; the Dresdeners are THAT great).

Bruckner 9 with Fabio Luisi (Sony). This is an excellent live performance. I love the Bruckner 9th, and own a bunch of them. But this one is yet another keeper. Luisi really nails the big, dissonant climax near the end of the Adagio.

R. Strauss "Alpine" symphony with F. Luisi (also Sony). This is outstanding! The sound is excellent, and so too is the thoroughly idiomatic playing of the Dresdeners. This is easily the best "Alpine" in my collection. Completely outstanding.


I love Sinopoli's totally "decadent" sounding Mahler 9 from Dresden (Profil), but I'm greatly disappointed in his weird and excessively slow Mahler 4 (also Profil). The last movement is a total flop.

I also own the Beethoven symphonies with Herbert Blomstedt (Berlin Classics), and Schubert symphonies 6 -9 on a Philips "twofer", conducted by Sawallisch. Those are highly recommendable as well.

(And of course, there's the Bruckner symphonies with Jochum, as well the R. Strauss orchestral works with Kempe).

Barry

[alpsman]

I had heard live the Staatskapelle Dresden in M9 with the late Sinopoli. This concert is one of the most memorable in my life. The sound was gentle. lyrical, smooth, with great power when needs but never vulgar. The commitment and concentration of the musicians impresive. As for the interpretation, that was a glory for Sinopoli. 
Later 3 years ago I heard St.Dr. under Wyung Whun Chung. Also 2 great concerts with Pastrorale, Brahms 1 and Romantic. What sound in all departments, and very cultural-old fashioned style- playing.
I think Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden to be a very major orchestra on a par with Berlin, Amsterdam and Vienna. Of course anyone of these has some special characteristics and it will be a great loss if these unique elements disappeared as a matter of a more homogenous style of playing, conducting and educating the new musicians.

[john haueisen]

Yes, the Dresden Staatskappele is amazing.
Years ago, I heard them in a live performance of Bruckner's third or fourth conducted by Hans Vonk.
The sound was spectacular, AND..........they played with NO SCORE!.  Every musician had the entire piece memorized.
--John H

[alpsman]

I also heard the Romantic with Hans Vonk in 1987. But i don't remember that they play without score.

[john haueisen]

Yes, it was the Romantic that I heard--perhaps even earlier than 1987 in Columbus, Ohio.
The Berlin Wall was still up, and perhaps they could not get approved by Soviet authorities to bring the scores of music.  Hans Vonk did not have a score either.  It was remarkably well-done, and amazed me and my wife that they had memorized the score.

--John H

[Russell]

There's also a really glorious DVD of Sinopoli and the SD doing the 'Alpine Symphony', taped at the Semper Oper in Dresden in 1998.  It's really wonderful to see this great orchestra (as well as Sinopoli) in action.  It's on Arthaus Musik, though I don't know whether it's still available...

Russell

[akiralx]

I love the Staatskapelle Dresden. They have the clarity of the Berlin Phil., but without sounding nearly so slick as the BPO can sometimes sound. They also lack the excessive darkness and weightiness that the Vienna Phil. can sometimes be plagued with. It's probably the excellent acoustics, but the Dresdeners get timbres and balances just right. Here are some recent acquisitions that I whole-heartily endorse:

Dvorak sym's. 8/9 with James Levine (DG). I burnt a copy from a local library copy. This is now out-of-print in the U.S. The 9th is particularly good.

Elgar sym. #1/two Berlioz overtures (Profil) with Colin Davis. I got this cheap through Amazon. I'm not a big fan of E1 (I greatly prefer the 2nd), but the Stattskapelle play this as though it had just been written specifically for them. You'd think that all of England were located around Dresden. Seriously, this is far better than ANY British recording I've yet to hear of E1 (and that's not a put-down to England; the Dresdeners are THAT great).

Bruckner 9 with Fabio Luisi (Sony). This is an excellent live performance. I love the Bruckner 9th, and own a bunch of them. But this one is yet another keeper. Luisi really nails the big, dissonant climax near the end of the Adagio.

R. Strauss "Alpine" symphony with F. Luisi (also Sony). This is outstanding! The sound is excellent, and so too is the thoroughly idiomatic playing of the Dresdeners. This is easily the best "Alpine" in my collection. Completely outstanding.


I love Sinopoli's totally "decadent" sounding Mahler 9 from Dresden (Profil), but I'm greatly disappointed in his weird and excessively slow Mahler 4 (also Profil). The last movement is a total flop.

I also own the Beethoven symphonies with Herbert Blomstedt (Berlin Classics), and Schubert symphonies 6 -9 on a Philips "twofer", conducted by Sawallisch. Those are highly recommendable as well.

(And of course, there's the Bruckner symphonies with Jochum, as well the R. Strauss orchestral works with Kempe).

Barry

Yes, got all of those!  Agreed they are superb, especially the Luisi Alpine - makes the piece more coherent than any other recording, and the sound on SACD is spectacular.  Renders my Sinopoli version (not one of his better CDs anyway) with the same orchestra rather redundant.

The Elgar won BBC Radio 3's Building a Library selection.  Note the cracked brass note followed by a hiss of annoyance from the conductor near the end...

The Levine New World is good, very big sound, but I'm not sure whether I prefer the earlier CSO one he did.

Another great Dresden recording I really like is Mutter's Sibelius Concerto with her ex, Andre Previn.

Don't forget the superb Schumann syms with Sawallisch, of course.