John Smyth asks: >Has anyone had a chance to hear "Joseph's Legende," with Sinopoli and the >Dresden? Besides opinions on the performance, I would also like opinions >about the recording and audience presence, as it was a live recording. Not with Sinopoli. I have the Kempe recording. I love Strauss, but, to put it charitably, this work should be decently buried. Strauss himself was disappointed in it. He was bullied into writing it by Hofmannsthal, who, characteristically, berated him for not achieving the grandeur of his conception (although the libretto is actually credited to one Count Harry Kessler, Hofmannsthal dictated it from beginning to end). The libretto's a late 19th-century s&m kitschfest of decadence (a la Wilde's Salome and Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon). Neither Hofmannsthal's finest moment nor, as it turns out, Strauss's. Del Mar finds it weak. It's probably best known for sparking a furious exchange between Ernest Newman and George Bernard Shaw - Newman saying the work bit, and Shaw giving the "Am I not Sophocles" defense. Newman comes off better than Shaw. Steve Schwartz