Masur conducts Strauss

It’s hard to overstate the esteem in which Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra were held in Europe in the 1990s. As well as playing a pivotal role in the return of democracy and the reunification of Germany, they performed the German symphonic repertoire with unrivalled splendour and authority. This concert captures them on tour Frankfurt in 1992, in a programme of Richard Strauss at his most exuberant (Till Eulenspiegel) and his darkest (Metamorphosen). The Leipzig orchestra’s historic relationship with Strauss had never seemed more vital, and it gives a special emotional charge to Júlia Várady’s luminous performance of the Vier Letzte Lieder.