STRAUSS: JOSEPHSLEGENDE; LOVE SCENE FROM FEUERSNOT; FESTMARSCH

STRAUSS: JOSEPHSLEGENDE; LOVE SCENE FROM
FEUERSNOT; FESTMARSCH

Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Neeme Järvi

Chandos CHSA 5120

Not everything that Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes took on was a success. The 1914

Josephslegende

,

with music by no less a figure than

Richard Strauss

, has almost sunk without trace. Strauss thought “the chaste Joseph himself isn’t at all up my street,” although he interrupted work on his

Alpensinfonie

(which amused him “even less than chasing cockroaches”) in favour of the ballet. Its best moments come in lushly imaginative special orchestral effects, but it makes rather too many sidesteps into pastiche and contains too much obvious padding. Neeme Järvi’s suitably indulgent performance is coupled with the luminous Love scene from the early opera

Feuersnot

and an earnest

Festival March

, the precocious 12-year-old composer’s Op. 1.

[ chandos.net ]