Strauss: Lieder (Op. 10, Op. 27, Op. 66) – Joo Cho

The three cycles of Lieder by Richard Strauss recorded in this Da Vinci Classics album have not much in common from the biographical viewpoint and as concerns their content. However, they are meaningfully gathered together as they represent three facets of the complex relationship between a composer and his publisher(s). His Lieder op. 10 are his first organic song cycle, while his op. 27 constitute his wedding gift to his wife, a gifted soprano. The rarely performed cycle Der Krämerspiegel op. 66, by way of contrast, is a vitriolic vendetta against his publishers, whom the composer ridicules and harshly criticizes through the salacious lines of a satirical poet. This recording is a particularly welcome possibility to hear it and judge a seldom-heard cycle, with the benefit of hindsight, on its own artistic terms, rather than in the heated terms of a controversy which is more than a century old.