Rudolf Kempe’s Ein Heldenleben stands with the best, though it doesn’t offer Reiner’s sheer virtuosity, Haitink’s supreme polish, or Barbirolli’s Falstaffian joviality. What it has is tremendous character, a genuine sense of fun, and a certain “Gemütlichkeit” that’s really the essence of Strauss. Listen, for example, to how distinctly the wind soloists characterize the hero’s adversaries, to the relaxed warmth of the love scene, the cartoon-like crispness of the battle, and to the way Kempe moves the music along with such a sure hand that you can’t seem to remember how you arrived so suddenly at the end when everything sounded so effortless and easy. It’s a marvelous performance, certainly one of the most purely “livable”, and it sounds just fine in this excellent, clean transfer (not a big improvement over previous editions, I have to add).
The same virtues apply equally to the other two items. Death and Transfiguration spends most of its time making music rather than a Big Philosophical Statement. It’s swift, dramatic, and at its conclusion aptly luminous. Once again Kempe proves himself to be a master of Straussian syntax. Listen to the way he builds the final climax after the moment of “death”–a curve of sound so steady and sure of its destination that you can practically see it. Salome’s dance is, of course, inspired trash, and no one did this sort of high-gloss twaddle better than Kempe: his feeling for rhythm, color, and above all textural balance was almost preternatural. A vastly entertaining disc, then, and an excellent introduction to what arguably remains the greatest series of Strauss recordings ever made.
