Order Now

“This is a groundbreaking recording—and a wonderful one!…Manfred Honeck himself catalysed the effort, in collaboration with Czech composer Tomás Ille. … Strauss pushes the borders of harmony in Elektra and employs a complex orchestra of 110, larger than most of his tone poems. … Honeck has marginally rescored it down to the merely mammoth forces customarily used in Strauss’s tone poems. Most importantly, he has woven the punchy, mercurial, polyphonic score into a coherent and exciting symphonic poem. … With any luck, the Elektra Suite will become part of our concert repertory.

The suite from Der Rosenkavalier makes for a perfect CD bookend to the music from Elektra. In Elektra (1909), Strauss looks forward. … This music needs no explanation—just impassioned advocacy, grace and a sense of ectasy. Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony possess these attributes in spades. With each new release…Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony reveal increasing indiciation of being one of orchestral music’s great historic partnerships. And half a century after the fact, I note that at last the violent harmonies in Elektra have a persuasive advocate.” —Steven Kruger, Fanfare Magazine