Richard Strauss' musical mountain climb, with some guidance

November 2, 2015 9:05 PM

100 years ago, Richard Strauss premiered An Alpine Symphony, "a majestic, musical depiction of a dawn-to-dusk hike up the Alps," his final symphonic poem. For this recent anniversary, NPR brought together Semyon Bychkov, who conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic in their performance of the tone poem, and David Hurwitz, the author of Richard Strauss: An Owner's Manual (Google books preview), to provide guidance and reviews of the symphony. You can take your own musical journey with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Bernard Haitink, for the BBC Proms in 2012.
posted by filthy light thief (6 comments total)

Eugh. Concept albums. What's next? A record about walking through a Moscow museum looking at pictures at an exhibition?
posted by clvrmnky at 5:54 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Hey, that's not a half bad idea.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:21 AM on November 3, 2015

What's next? An album based on the planets and their mythological ideals?
posted by clvrmnky at 11:09 AM on November 3, 2015

Hmph. You may as well make a record about some kind of prehistoric fertility ritual.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:15 PM on November 3, 2015

This is turning into another Vangelis thread.
posted by clvrmnky at 8:04 PM on November 3, 2015

Eugh. Concept albums. What's next? A record about walking through a Moscow museum looking at pictures at an exhibition?

Only if you do it in one take.

But I bet Strauss never crashed two trains together, did he?
posted by lagomorphius at 4:34 AM on November 4, 2015