Volker Straus

Who was Volker Straus?

Volker Straus [b. July 5, 1936 in Speyer, Germany – d. April 21, 2002 in Bilthoven, the Netherlands] was one of the foremost Tonmeisters of the twentieth century. He sound-engineered some 590 albums – the vast majority uncredited – during his remarkable career, for many of the great artists. His last recording before his retirement was of soprano Jessye Norman performing the opening song at the 1996 Olympics.

The majority of Straus' career was spent with the Philips label in the Netherlands. In that association, he engineered significant recordings of such artists as Sir Colin Davis, Claudio Arrau, Henryk Szeryng, Josef Krips, Alfred Brendel, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the Beaux Arts Trio, Ingrid Haebler, Sir Neville Marriner, and - above all - the conductor Bernard Haitink. His decades of production engineering for Bernard Haitink's recordings with the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam form an imposing and diverse body of discs documenting the mainstream symphonic repertory. Straus' production of Haitink's Mahler symphony interpretations with the Berlin Philharmonic, Haitink's Brahms cycle with the Boston Symphony, and Haitink's Bruckner performances with the Vienna Philharmonic are notable for their engineering as well as their musical excellence.1,21,21,2