This absorbing release on the Leipzig-based Accentus label is a reminder that the Royal Opera’s new music director, Jakub Hrůša, has for the last nine years excelled in orchestral music as chief conductor of the Bamberg Symphony. The programme juxtaposes three works composed in the final decades of the 19th century, each reflecting in different ways on the notion of a hero, or what is meant by a hero’s journey.
A Hero’s Song was Dvořák’s final tone poem, a 20-minute micro-symphony in which intrepid determination gives way to mourning, martial conflict and finally hope. It’s full of amiable melodies and, in Hrůša’s hands, it packs a dramatic punch. It’s followed by a compelling discovery: Glazunov’s symphonic elegy To the Memory of a Hero, composed when he was 20. Advancing with sombre tread, and boasting a pair of instantly memorable themes, it is handsomely shaped by conductor and orchestra.
Richard Strauss’s ubiquitous Ein Heldenleben is no stranger on disc. Things get off to a slightly ponderous start, and the recording can feel congested when confronted with the full force of Strauss’s orchestration. Nevertheless, Hrůša’s flexible phrasing ensures the music’s theatricality wins through, especially in the supple central portrait of the composer’s wife and the hero’s poignant final retirement.
