Strauss sits alongside Mahler as a leading conductor – as well as composer - of his age, winning plaudits and support even before the age of 20 from contemporaneous luminaries such as Hans von Bülow. In fact between them, Mahler and Strauss controlled the two most powerful opera houses in the world in their mid-Thirties, with Strauss in Berlin and Mahler in Vienna.

This set brings together his major recordings for Polydor/Deutsche Grammophon. Taking his lead from the greatest conductor of late nineteenth century, Hans von Bülow, Strauss sought to make his conducting ‘of compelling necessity borne of the form and content of the work, with no wasted posturing or inauthentic emotion’.

This 7CD set allows the full spectrum of his conducting to be admired, from 3 CDs of his own major tone poems to his startlingly modern, almost period-instrument-style Mozart from the early LP era and fascinating recordings of Beethoven’s 5th and 7th Symphonies.



• CDs 1-3: Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben (recorded 1941), Tod und Verklärung (1926), Don Juan (1929), Don Quixote (1933), Till Eulenspiegel (1927), Dance of the Seven Veils (1928), Rosenkavalier-Waltzes (1927/41) and more!
• CD 4: Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 39-41; The Magic Flute Overture (1926-1928)
• CD 5: Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 7 (1928/26)
• CD 6: Overtures by Cornelius, Gluck, Wagner (The Flying Dutchman, Tristan) & Weber (1928)
• CD 7: A second, late Don Quixote recording (1941), as well as Lieder with Heinrich Schlusnus and Strauss himself at the piano (1921)