Composers: Strauss
Compositions: Don Quixote, Violin Concerto
Performers: Daniel Müller-Schott vc, James Ehnes v, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Sir Andrew Davis
Catalogue Number: ABC Classic 4817471

I’ve always marvelled at how someone as prosaically bourgeois as Richard Strauss could have composed something as strikingly original as Don Quixote, with so much humour and psychological insight. The opening of the Melbourne Symphony’s performance begins slightly haphazardly but, on hearing the almost atonal comments by the violin in the introduction, I wondered whether the slightly untidy ensemble might also be part of a musical diagnosis of the Knight Errant’s clouded mind.