PERFORMANCE

Carnegie Hall
The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

Rene Fleming - Soprano

Everything we see in New York City is a treat but this performance is at the top of the list.  Strauss's "Four Last Songs" has been one of my very favorites for many years.  To hear it performed by Rene Fleming and the Met Orchestra is a dream performance.

ALL-R. STRAUSS PROGRAM
Don Juan
Four Last Songs"
Meinem Kinde"
"Liebeshymnus"
"Das Bächlein""Ruhe, meine Seele"'
"Die heiligen drei Könige aus Morgenland"
Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30

"A disciple of Richard Wagner—in whom he declared “music reached its greatest capacity for expression”—Richard Strauss pushed Wagnerian lushness and chromaticism to a glorious extreme that became a cul de sac. By the early 20th century, the “modern” school of Wagner was as dated as the “conservative” school of Brahms. It is certainly hard to see how anyone—except Strauss himself in Also sprach Zarathustra and Ein Heldenleben—could outdo the Wagnerian fireworks of Don Juan, the first of Strauss’s tone poems to be performed.

Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) are the final creations of a composer who knew he was at the end of his life. Knowing these songs are final testaments makes them uniquely poignant, but without their dramatic circumstances, they would still be among the composer’s most exquisite creations. Prior to the Vier letzte Lieder of 1948, Strauss wrote more than 200 lieder. Of those on this afternoon’s program, he wrote the majority before 1906 for his wife, Pauline, who sang them, he always maintained, better than anyone. He composed for other favored singers as well, sometimes reworking early songs originally for piano accompaniment into full orchestral versions, sometimes beginning with the orchestra and condensing to piano later.

Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra influenced two of the most glorious musical works of the late 19th century, Strauss’s tone poem of the same title and Mahler’s Third Symphony, both completed in 1896. In the case of Strauss’s work, the influence seems almost palpable—an astonishing display of orchestral color and technology. From the blazing fanfare over a shuddery organ pedal—surely one of the most imposing openings in music—to the enigmatic ending, Also sprach Zarathustra is a mesmerizing work, one that combines visceral power with surprising delicacy."

Resting cellos.

You have the words so here's the music. Well worth the time... Listen.

A complete performance of Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra closed the program.

Russian Tea Room