Ein Heldenleben; webern; im sommerwind. Chicago SO/Bernard Haitink CSO-Resound CSOR 901-1002

In one sense this is a chalk- and-cheese coupling. Richard Strauss was a leading radical when he completed his self-glorifying tone poem, Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), in 1898. Anton Webern was still a minnow when he wrote Im Sommerwind in 1904.

There’s not a hint in it of the Webern who would become the purest advocate of Arnold Schoenberg’s 12-tone system, and, later, a key influence on the avant-garde of the 1950s. In another sense, of course, the two composers on this disc could hardly be closer. Webern was under the spell of Strauss when he set down his musical responses (uncharacteristically wallowy and idyllic) to a poem by the German writer Bruno Wille. In his Chicago concert tapings, Bernard Haitink is suitably gentle in the Webern and lush in the Strauss, though sometimes leisurely rather than urgently.

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