It’s good to have Richard Strauss’ fascinating, somewhat atypical concerted works for piano left hand available on a single disc, especially in well played and strongly projected readings like these. At times the slow-motion harmonic scansion and rhapsodic piano writing throughout the Paregon to the Symphonia Domestica evoke Scriabin’s misty muse. By contrast the Panathenäenzug, subtitled Symphonic Etudes in the form of a passacaglia, uses a time-honored baroque form to generate opulently scored, post-Wagnerian froth.
Not having heard Ian Hobson’s similar coupling on Arabesque (which throws in Strauss’ better-known, two-handed Burleske), I nevertheless recommend Anna Gourari’s sweeping, fluent virtuosity, aided by Karl Anton Rickenbacker’s able-bodied and cogently detailed support. Should, however, the Rudolf Kempe/Malcolm Frager versions appear separately from the EMI-Kempe-Strauss box, I’d opt for the Dresden Staatskapelle’s additional tonal luster and executional finesse. Still, those who’ve been collecting Koch’s valuable “Richard Strauss the Unknown” series should snap up the present disc while they can.
