Recording from 07. Apr 2022

An Alpine Symphony

Aged just 14, the young Richard Strauss joined a part of climbers in the mountains of Upper Bavaria. They were caught in a storm, got lost in the mist, soaked by the rain and blistered by the sun. Strauss later recalled how, the next day, he ‘described the whole hike on a piano.’

Strauss’s piano improvisation sowed the seeds for Strauss’s Alpine Symphony of 35 years later – a piece calling for an orchestra of 130 including wind machine, thunder machine, cowbells, organ and an off-stage band of 16 brass instruments.