skip navigation | text only | accessibility | site map  Tod und
Verklärung  About the Work  Richard Strauss Quick Look Composer:
Richard Strauss Program note originally written for the
following performance: © Peter Laki  Nothing could have been
more "modern" in the music of the 1880s and ‘90s than the
symphonic poem, that bold attempt to create drama without words
and to test music's expressive powers to the fullest.  Pioneered
by Franz Liszt from the 1850s on, the new genre found a
practitioner of genius in the young Richard Strauss.  In a
series of orchestral works that established him as one of the
leading avant-gardists of the day, Strauss did not hesitate to
tackle in his music the most complex literary and philosophical
topics possible.  Although some have continued to maintain that
music is incapable of handling such topics, Strauss's openness
to extra-musical ideas couldn't help but have an indelible
impact.  Works that sound like Don Juan, Death and
Transfiguration or Also sprach Zarathustra would b