An Alpine Symphony, op. 64 TrV 233

Richard Strauss’s last completed tone poem is regarded as the pinnacle of his art of orchestration: “Now I’ve finally learned to orchestrate,” he himself is once supposed to have said about it after the dress rehearsal. The single-movement Alpine symphony that we know today ultimately evolved – over almost 15 years – from the original drafts of an artist’s tragedy, titled “Der Antichrist. Eine Alpensinfonie [The Antichrist. An Alpine Symphony]” up to the stage of the last sketches. With unprecedented plasticity, the work showcases a (metaphysical?) mountain hike with stops in the forest, at the waterfall, on the alpine pasture and, of course, at the summit.