Richard Strauss – 75th Death Anniversary

Sir Simon Rattle leads the Berliner Philharmonic in a performance of Richard Strauss’s tone poem Don Juan, Op. 20. Written at the age of 24, it is one of the composer’s earliest tone poems. The legendary Spanish womanizer Don Juan had already appeared in works W. A. Mozart and other composers. For this poem, Strauss drew upon a version of the Don Juan story by the Austrian poet Nikolaus Lenau. The composer himself conducted the first performance in Weimar, on November 11, 1889. The work was an immediate success and brought the young Strauss international recognition. This performance was part of the Gala from Berlin 2006, recorded at the Philharmonie in Berlin, Germany.

The informative documentary series ‘Discovering Masterpieces’ sheds light on great masterpieces of classical music, as acclaimed experts, famous soloists, and outstanding conductors take you on a journey back to the time and place of composition. This documentary addresses Richard Strauss’s tone poem An Alpine Symphony, Op. 64 (Eine Alpensinfonie). Completed in 1915, the symphonic work depicts a mountain climb in the Alps and is one of the composer’s largest non-operatic works. It is scored for a large orchestra, requiring about 125 instruments. In this documentary, the German author and Strauss specialist Habakuk Traber explains the concept of the work and the story behind: a story of a human life, with its jollity, its fear, its glory, beginning and ending in darkness. The music excerpts in this broadcast are performed by Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden under the baton of Giuseppe Sinopoli.

Violinist Daniel Rowland, violist Rachel Roberts, cellist Julian Arp, and pianist Diana Ketler perform Richard Strauss’s Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 13, as part of the Stiftfestival 2016 in the Dutch village of Weerselo. In his early years, Strauss tried to compose different types of chamber music works, including a piano quartet. The young composer started writing the Piano Quartet in C minor in the spring of 1884 and completed it one year later. The work is in four movements and shows considerable influence from Johannes Brahms. It premiered on December 8, 1885 in Weimar and was performed by members of the Halír Quartet with Strauss himself playing the piano part. The following year the work won the first prize given by the Berliner Tonkünstlerverein for a piano quartet. This performance was recorded at the Stiftkerk in Weerselo, the Netherlands.