Strauss’s “Alpine Symphony”

Part of TŌN’s Carnegie Hall series

After a string of successful tone poems, An Alpine Symphony was Richard Strauss’s first such composition after nearly a dozen years of focusing on opera. Written for a massive orchestra that includes such rarities as the heckelphone, thunder sheets, a wind machine, and other unusual effects, this gloriously opulent masterpiece takes listeners through the ascent and descent of a mountain in the Alps, with meadows, streams, storms, and vistas along the way. Also on the program are Strauss’s Burleske for Piano and Orchestra, performed with Blair McMillen, and the vivacious Die Tageszeiten (Times of the Day), a setting of four nature poems by Joseph von Eichendorff.