When Fritz Reiner brought Richard Strauss’s Salome and Elektra to the Metropolitan Opera in 1952, he revealed these scores in their most uncompromising light. These are performances of iron discipline and fierce dramatic focus, where nothing is allowed to sprawl, soften, or indulge. Strauss’s modernity is laid bare with brutal clarity.
Heard today in Pristine XR remastering, these historic Met broadcasts sound anything but historical. With Ljuba Welitsch’s legendary Salome and Astrid Varnay’s searing Elektra, Reiner’s Strauss emerges with terrifying momentum and psychological force — performances that still feel shockingly modern more than seventy years on.
We also mark the 140th anniversary of the birth of Wilhelm Furtwängler, one of the most probing and philosophically minded conductors of the twentieth century, with a 20% discount on all his recordings at Pristine.