Sunday 11 September - Strauss, D&T and FLS

[french frank]

'Stephen Johnson considers two works by Richard Strauss, his early tone poem Death and Transfiguration and the Four Last Songs with the soprano Katie Van Kooten and the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Juanjo Mena.

'These two great works were composed at opposite ends of the composer's life but both are occupied with philosophical ideas of death and the passing over to the next world. "Tod und Verklarung" - Death and Transfiguration - is a symphonic depiction of the subject and was a work that clearly came to mind when the Strauss composed his Four Last Songs in the final years of his life, as he quotes from the tone poem in the music.'

[zola]

Four Last Songs eh ? Well, someone in the production team seems to have a sense of gallows humour for the final programme ( apart from the promised interval stop gaps ). I can still remember the first Discovering Music I heard about 12 years ago when I was beginning to get into classical music as well as blues and jazz. It was Prelude a L'Apres-Midi etc and was invaluable to somebody in the position that I was then. On a Strauss theme, I seem to recall another one very early on in my listening was Metamorphosen. Both with Stephen Johnson.

[french frank]

Four Last Songs eh ? Well, someone in the production team seems to have a sense of gallows humour for the final programme

Not to mention the irony of Death and Transfiguration ....


[Nearly as good as starting the Proms with Weir Brahms and Liszt]