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.
