Strauss: Burleske in D Minor (Goerner)

Along with Liszt’s Totentanz and Franck’s Symphonic Variations, Strauss’s Burleske in D minor is the best non-piano concerto ever written. We are facing a work which fully reflects the young Strauss, with that sense of virtuosity, vigor and heroism; but it’s also very sliding, exciting and easy to listen.
It should be a parody of Brahms’s second piano concerto, a joking tribute which, in fact is called “burlesque”. Here, like in Brahms, we don’t have a classic conception of the soloist accompanied by the orchestra, but we have a more important role of the orchestral textures and the single instruments, like the timpani which open and close the work.
We have a big “first movement” in sonata form, with two main themes (D minor at 00:20 and F major at 02:08), a development (05:38) and a recapitulation (D minor theme at 08:59 and D major theme at 10:20), after which there is a cadenza (15:36) and eventually a coda (17:50). There is a great thematic variety, despite the fact that all the themes are closely related to one another, as in Liszt’s B minor sonata.
Goerner has a corret playing of this piece. Virtuosistic passages are played with discretion and elegance.

[@GICM]

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