metamorphosen

Antwerp Symphony Orchestra

free

programme

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Serenade in E-flat major, Op. 7, „Serenade for Winds”
Metamorphosen für 23 Solostreicher

Richard Wagner (1813-1882)

Siegfried-Idyll, WWV 103

about

At the age of seventeen, Richard Strauss composed the Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments. When Hans von Bülow, the pianist-conductor who conducted the premiere of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, heard the piece, he was wildly enthusiastic. He included the composition in a concert programme that he conducted in many German cities, giving the young Richard Strauss his first taste of fame.

Almost half a century later, during the final months of the Second World War, Richard Strauss delivered his last great orchestral work: Metamorphosen. This haunting, continually-evolving lament is an obituary to the many German culture houses - the places where Richard Strauss had worked all through his life - that were wiped off the map at the end of the war by Allied bombardments.

Wagner wrote the Siegfried-Idyll, originally titled the Tribschener Idyll, in 1870 as a surprise gift for the 33rd birthday of his wife, Cosima. The piece was first performed early in the morning on the stairwell of Wagner’s mansion in Tribschen. Cosima’s diary records that she was gently awoken by the music, whereupon Wagner entered the room and presented her with the score. Wagner later used this idyllic music in Siegfried, the third part of his Ring cycle.

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