A marriage of fire and tenderness
Mehta finds a degree of emotional nuance matched by no other conductor
Zubin Mehta (conductor)
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
Decca 470 9542 Zubin Mehta and the Symphonia Domestica are bosom buddies: he has recorded it on no fewer than three occasions. While his re-makes with the Berlin and London Philharmonics have their moments, they pale in comparison with this remarkably fresh and vivid version with the
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (with which today he is conductor emeritus). Made in 1969, when Mehta was in a golden period as the orchestra’s music director, it bristles with the self-confidence and élan he had instilled in the players since his appointment, aged just 26, seven years earlier.
Mehta has often been branded a brash interpreter, but there is no sign of that here. Indeed, of all the Domesticas on record, none is more tenderly expressive. The Scherzo, where the baby awakes, has ravishingly pointed woodwind detail, and the cradle song that follows is hushed and cossetting.
Mehta can call out the big guns when needed. The fiery fugue which launches the Finale leaves no doubt that a sharptongued altercation is happening between the Strausses, while the crushing, brasscapped climaxes at the work’s conclusion are exhilaratingly projected. But Mehta also finds a degree of emotional nuance matched by no other conductor. No one makes the multi-stranded dream music of the sleeping hours sound quite so strange and unsettled. And even in the love music of the Adagio, Mehta finds elements of unquietness and anxiety that are glossed over in other interpretations.
Much of this extra detail would be buried were the sound quality not outstanding. Fortunately, it is. Working in Royce Hall at the University of California, Decca’s engineers conjure a classic analogue recording, wonderfully ripe and rangy, with oodles of visceral impact. In the Symphonia Domestica you need that –
if you’re not thrilled and seduced by the sounds of Strauss’s massive orchestra, half the point of the piece is missing. Brass and double basses emerge with particular potency, and no other version is so sheerly enjoyable as a hi-fi listening experience. It is currently available to be streamed or bought via download, and the digital remastering is excellent.
Watching Strauss conducting the Symphonia Domestica, an observer wrote that ‘he laughs with the timpani’, and ‘takes pleasure with the joy he is unleashing’. Mehta captures that quintessential Straussian spirit in this great recording.