Gramophone, November 2005
“Now that we have allegedly reached CD-Dämmerung, at least so far as the classical recording industry is concerned, events such as this autumn’s simultaneous release of Daphne and Elektra are not supposed to happen. Even a few decades ago in the ‘golden age’ of recording and Strauss singing, it would have been unusual for one conductor to bring out these two releases together, but that is exactly what Semyon Bychkov is doing. Moreover, he is doing so with rather starry casts: the title-roles are sung by Renee Fleming and Deborah Polaski, and Decca surrounds its Daphne with the two tenors of Johan Botha (Apollo) and Michael Schade (Leukippos), while Hännsler Classic adds Felicity Palmer (Klytamnestra) and Anne Schwanewilms (Chrysothemis) to Elektra’s dysfunctional family.
To anyone still unfamiliar with Bychkov’s work this might seem surprising, but it will make perfect sense to those who have heard him conduct Strauss operas in the world’s major houses or the tone-poems he has made so much a part of his life with-the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne. Yet it is not what might have been predicted for the Russian-born conductor when he made his early Berlin Philharmonic debut with Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. In fact, he conducted Ariadne auf Naxos at Aix-en-Provence back in 1985, adding Der Rosenkavaier to his repertoire not long after. He has since conducted Salome and done Elektra very widely, with Daphne becoming a more recent obsession. His stint as Generalmusikdirektor of the Semperoper in Dresden (1999-2003) took him to the high temple of Straussian performance.
The truth is that Bychkov has long had a special affinity for Strauss. He recalls his first professional appointment: ‘When I was made music director of the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra in Michigan, 25 years ago, my first concert opened with Also sprach Zarathustra, and in the second half I did Beethoven Nine. I’m not sure how the audience survived – I hardly did! But I was obsessed with all these great masterpieces, because I’d been waiting for them, and it’s interesting to me now that it was Zarathustra.
It’s a great mystery why one connects to particular music. But with Strauss I became fascinated by the man and his life – the contradictions and questions that are still being posed, and to which everyone has to find their own answers. Not just his about relationship with the Nazis, but about his art. How, early on, he was immediately acclaimed as avant-garde, a successor to Wagner, and then, post-Elektra, how his image and positioning changed. Every composer is in a way an inventor; and when you’re criticised for abandoning modernism, especially if you don’t agree with what’s being said, then it’s painful. But it was the only way in which he could go, the only thing in which he believed. With Elektra he went to what he considered the utmost limit, and then he was forced to find a new path.’
Bychkov’s repertoire reflects his preference for absolute masterpieces over rarities. So how does he regard Strauss’s own quip about being a ‘first-class second-rate’ composer? ‘Personally, I feel that he belongs with the elite of musical creators. What he said about himself was said partly in jest but also with enormous humility – looking at the geniuses who preceded him, it must have been a daunting challenge. He completely idolised Mozart, he had a complicated relationship with the music of Wagner, so when he was viewing his own creations I’m sure he could recognise his own phenomenal gift while acknowledging how tall those composers stood.’
Strauss’s other famous quote about conducting Salome and Elektra as if they were elfin pieces by Mendelssohn comes to mind here, too, for Bychkov’s interpretations of the composer always have lightness and humanity, elegance and glow. His Elektra is far removed from the screaming matches into which so many performances degenerate. Putting Elektra and Daphne side by side, Bychkov finds a way of shaping these works that, utterly different though they may be, comes down in both cases to a sure command of their dense webs of thematic material. These are performances that show the contrasting works to be equally true to the composer. ‘When you think of his long life, plus all the events of that life, there had to be an evolution in the character of his music. I don’t see the division. The means of expression are different but essentially it’s the same man. You cannot wear one suit all your life, and Strauss changed his clothes, too.’
Bychkov is happy to have taken these operas into the recording studio at the point he did. ‘You can get more inside a piece than in any other circumstance, provided there is a history of having done that piece live – then the recording becomes a mirror in which you look to improve the little details. These were extraordinary processes for us, and we were walking in the clouds the entire time.’”