Composer

Concert of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna

Musikverein Wien

Join eleven of the world’s leading musicians for an evening of achingly beautiful Romantic masterpieces.

Schubert’s sublime String Quintet in C – with its famous haunting Adagio – showcases the composer at his most inspired, while Strauss’ gorgeous Sextet from Capriccio is a love letter to music itself. His final opera follows a composer and a poet each vying for the love of a Countess, with the opening sextet imagined as a work written by the composer Flamand for his beloved.

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Transfigured Night

Cadogan Hall 

The irresistible sway of Johann Strauss’s An der schönen blauen Donau has made it arguably the most famous waltz of all time.

The Blue Danube

MediaCityUK

Her mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisth are to die for the murder of Elektra's father, Agamemnon. Clytemnestra, for her part, is tormented by anxious dreams and memories. Elektra is unable to win over her sister Chrysothemis to the plan to murder Clytemnestra and Aegisth. A mysterious stranger, who reveals himself to be her brother Orest, finally commits the deed. Elektra then dances a final, ecstatic dance.

Elektra

Vienna State Opera

Brass concert

Mozarteum Foundation

Soprano Louise Alder returns to Garsington Opera for a recital with renowned pianist Joseph Middleton. Joseph is widely regarded as one of the most exceptional pianists of his generation and is renowned for his song accompaniment and he collaborates with many of the world’s foremost singers, being described by the New York Times as “the perfect accompanist”. Louise was last on the Garsington stage as Pamina Die Zauberflöte in 2018 and has since gone on to delight audiences worldwide, most recently as Countess Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro at Glyndebourne this summer. Louise sings at the last night of the BBC Proms this summer and makes her Metropolitan Opera debut in November.

Louise Alder & Joseph Middleton

Wormsley

As different as we humans are – in one respect we are all the same, without exception: We must die; all life on earth ends. When, where and how – that is the great question that has preoccupied us as long as we can think and feel. What is death like? As the 34-year-old Richard Strauss imagined it: a look back, sublime, solemn, a tremendous crescendo towards a shining horizon? Or is the same composer closer to an inscrutable truth when, in 1948, a year before his own death, he lets the soul soar in free flight in the Four Last Songs and presents us earthlings with one of the most moving works of classical music? The Finnish soprano Anu Komsi and Sakari Oramo on the podium delve into this overwhelming realm between melancholy, peace, farewell and the premonition of death. But dying can also have quite different sides… the British composer George Benjamin sings a song about it.

Swan song

Cologne Philharmonie

Unfortunately, we need to change the first half of the programme on December 7 because of scheduling reasons. Instead of the originally planned programme with works for brass ensemble by Takemitsu, Shostakovich, and Tomasi, we will be offering “Four Black American Dances” by Carlos Simon and the trumpet concerto “Nobody Knows the Trouble I See” by Bernd Alois Zimmermann.

Andris Nelsons & Håkan Hardenberger

Gasteig HP8

Brahms’ fiery Violin Concerto, with its sweeping melodies and emotional depth, comes to life through the artistry of returning guest violinist Geneva Lewis. Jimmy López’s Aino is a stirring tone poem of defiance and tragedy, while Strauss’ and Leoncavallo’s works are steeped in operatic beauty—all inspired by love, sacrifice, and youthful vitality.

Geneva Plays Brahms

Green Music Center

Richard Strauss casts himself as the protagonist in A Hero’s Life, an epic autobiographical tone poem from 1898. Bold and notoriously difficult, the work depicts the hero’s battles, critics, love story, and victories—yet, rather than ending in a blaze of glory, Strauss closes his saga with a serene and reflective retreat as his hero steps away from the world, content with his legacy.

Markus Poschner conducts Strauss' A Hero's Life

Salt Palace Convention Center

The oboe's light lines soar into the ether, Stravinsky plays with our musical past – and with Brahms we land firmly in the hearth of sincerity.
Strauss, Stravinsky and Brahms: Three composers who, in their own way, are masters of painting with the entire symphonic palette.

Brahms 1

Aarhus Music Hall

Richard Strauss brings humor and charm to Till Eulenspiegel, a lively portrait of the mischievous prankster. Brahms never revealed a story behind his Third Symphony, but its four movements are infused with a yearning, bittersweet beauty. Star soprano Julia Bullock gives the world premiere of a new song cycle, written for her by former CSO Sir Georg Solti Conducting Apprentice Matthew Aucoin. Set to the poetry of Chilean writer Raúl Zurita, the piece explores themes of memory, language and spirituality.

Till Eulenspiegel & Bullock Sings Aucoin

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Experience the heartbreaking Adagio from Mahler’s unfinished Symphony No. 10 conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, whose Mahler interpretations Bachtrack calls “devilishly good.” Soprano Camilla Nylund and bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny take the stage in Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony, a monumental exploration of love and longing.

Mahler’s Tenth, Adagio Lyric Symphony

Kennedy Center

Munich Residence

How, at the same time, with similar and equally extensive means, can we bring to life in turn a cheerful pastoral and one of the darkest tales? Miracles of the orchestra! Exact contemporaries, Gabriel Pierné and Richard Strauss invite us, one, to relive a comedy-ballet under Louis XV, the other to combat the surge of occult powers ( The Woman Without a Shadow , presented in the form of a rare instrumental suite). All this between a detour to Mussorgsky's Bald Mountain and the sparks of a new flute concerto written for Emmanuel Pahud.

The Woman Without a Shadow Pahud / Gabel

Maison de la Radio et de la Musique

You’ll know it from the first note! Tchaikovsky’s famous Piano Concerto No. 1 has everything you could want in a piano concerto: jaw-dropping virtuosity, finger-flying fireworks, and impassioned melodies you’ll be humming on the way home. Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben serves up epic battle scenes, tender love scenes, and gripping drama, portrayed through soaring music.

Thanksgiving Weekend: Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1

Jones Hall

What's twice as cool as one symphony orchestra? Two symphony orchestras! The stage is filled to bursting point when Copenhagen Phil, together with their colleagues in the Odense Symphony Orchestra and their chief conductor Pierre Bleuse, plays Richard Strauss' mammoth work, the Alpine Symphony . The whole splendor begins with Bruch's atmospheric violin concerto – a favorite among musicians and audiences – with the 19-year-old Danish talent, Selma Teilmann, as soloist.

Alpine Symphony

The Conservatory Concert Hall

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Konstantin Krimmel / Andris Poga

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

For most symphony orchestras, Richard Strauss's orchestral swan song, the Alpine Symphony, is an impossible dream with its requirement of more than 130 musicians on stage. But when we in the OS invite the colleagues from Copenhagen Phil to dance, we can spectacularly realize this musical cornucopia, which with its enormous symphonic powers includes wind machines, bells, a concert organ, no less than 12 horns, as well as a maximum cast in all seats: fasten your seat belts because this is going to be a WILD ride!

The Alps Symphony

Odense Concert Hall

In 1948, Richard Strauss sensed the end was nigh. Germany lay in ruins, its major opera houses destroyed by war. As his attempts to ignite a cultural rebirth in his homeland proved futile, Strauss turned to music. His final goodbye was a series of four iconic orchestral songs that, in the words of David Bowie, ‘ache with love for a life quietly fading.’ Lucy Crowe joins the Orchestra for a performance of Strauss’s profoundly moving musical epitaph alongside the Orchestra’s Solo Oboe Gordon Hunt performing Strauss’s tender Oboe Concerto written just a few years earlier.

Four Last Songs

University of Oxford

Richard Strauss had a deep admiration for Don Quixote—a man who hurls himself into every challenge, obstacle, and peril, without ever achieving a final victory. It’s this ‘knightly character’ that Strauss celebrates in his Fantastic Variations from 1897.While Don Quixote longs for a life as a hero, Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune takes us on a sensual journey - this time it is the dreaming faun who is the focus of the symphonic poem. Meanwhile, Ottorino Respighi’s Pini di Roma (1924) offers a sonic tour through the Eternal City, from the Villa Borghese to the Via Appia, always in view of the city’s towering marvels: its pine trees, which weave an evergreen thread through the ancient metropolis. James Gaffigan brings together three fantastic concert works contrasting highly diverse styles, with Strauss crossing the boundaries into modernity and Respighi already channelling in 1924 the future mode of film music. An exhilarating evening awaits!

Dreams of the hero

Konzerthaus Berlin

Jakub Hrůša is not only one of the greatest conductors of our time: the charismatic Czech is also known for his cleverly conceived concert programs, opening up new perspectives on seemingly familiar works. At his concert, audiences can look forward to a truly prime example of this special art: Together with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, he will perform Beethoven's Pastorale and Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony – two spectacular orchestral spectacles of nature that powerfully transcended the boundaries of what was musically possible at their time. In his monumentally orchestrated Alpine Symphony, Strauss demonstrates not only his stature as a composer but also his brilliant skills as an orchestrator, allowing the vast orchestra to shimmer and radiate in all its colors.

Bamberg Symphony Orchestra / Jakub Hrůša

A 25-year-old romantic idealist who, with unbridled self-assurance, made both the sensual pleasures of life and transcendence after death tangible in music: that was Richard Strauss. With his tone poems Don Juan and Death and Transfiguration, he stirred up the music world around 1890. His late-romantic sound paintings caused both enthusiasm and consternation among audiences. A quarter of a century later, Franz Kafka wrote his groundbreaking novel The Trial. Ivan Danko’s composition Process musically captures the bizarrely oppressive atmosphere there. The deliberately Kafkaesque choice of solo instruments by our Composer in Focus, namely oboe, Wagner tuba and harpsichord, contributes to this. Following the successful Prague premiere in 2024 on the 100th anniversary of Kafka’s death, Danko’s Process will be performed for the first time in Germany in Stuttgart. Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue KV 546 is the link between Strauss’ and Danko’s metaphysical questions in this program.

2. Symphony Concert

Beethoven Hall (Beethovensaal)

This is a benefit concert for Tualatin Valley Symphony, in memory of Michelle Volk, daughter of cellist and board member Celia Volk. Honor her memory with your presence, and that of your rich uncle who loves chamber music!

Strauss for winds, strings mix it up!

Tigard Friends Church

Joined by the phenomenal soprano Lucy Crowe, we journey across centuries and styles. From Handel and Haydn’s bright elegance to the vivid, kaleidoscopic textures of Messiaen, and from Berg’s exquisite The Nightingale to Gershwin’s jazz-tinged lyricism, come for an inspiring and beautiful range of music. Soar through centuries of music with one of the country’s most exciting orchestras and finest of singers.

Fantasia Orchestra with Lucy Crowe: Birdsong

Smith Square Hall

The Orchestra Now Resident Conductor Zachary Schwartzman returns with the orchestra to Symphony Space for another free concert. The concert opens with Strauss’s beloved tone poem Don Juan. Then tenor Ryan Michki, a winner of the 2024 Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition, performs Vaughan Williams’ emotional English song cycle On Wenlock Edge, written after the composer had spent three months studying with Maurice Ravel in Paris. Also on the program are Steven Stucky’s arrangement of Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary, originally composed 330 years ago in 1695, and Samuel Barber’s epic and expansive Symphony No. 1 in One Movement.

The Orchestra Now: "Don Juan" and Vaughan Williams

Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Symphony Space

Long before Oscar Wilde’s interpretation, the figure of Salome already appeared in the Bible. There, the story was about how King Herod, his stepdaughter Salome, and John the Baptist (Jochanaan) each lose their heads—although in very different ways...

Sa­lo­me

Schiller Theater

The Symphony’s annual collaboration with the Stanford University Symphonic Chorus focuses on large-scale works that bring a refreshing and inspiring perspective to modern living. Music of contemporary favorites Dan Forrest and Jessie Montgomery complement one of Richard Strauss’ most heartfelt tone poems.

Annual Stanford Concerts

Stanford University

Richard Strauss created a truly ecstatic tone poem with "Ein Heldenleben." The 34-year-old promptly declared himself a hero – the music sounds confident and aggressive. For in this symphonic epic, the hero quarrels with his "adversaries." These were all those who rejected Strauss's highly Romantic art. His work creates intoxicating imagery full of love melodies and daring adventures. Every instrument on the stage is called upon in this fervent plea for artistic freedom.

WDR Happy Hour - Heroes' Lives

Museum Ludwig

Guerrero’s Return: A Hero’s Life

Shermerhorn Symphony Center

Beethoven’s radiant Septet, Nielsen’s playful Serenata, and Strauss’ mischievous Till Eulenspiegel combine for an evening of warmth, wit, and artistry.

Joyful Beethoven: Season Opener

The Church of Bethesda-By-The Sea

Chamber music has a deep-rooted tradition in the Czech Republic, one that is actively nurtured through education. A key player in this is the Academy of Chamber Music, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The occasion will be marked with a concert featuring current members, alumni, and faculty members, including a world premiere by composer Jan Ryant Dřizal.

Czech Chamber Music Society • Chamber Music Academy

Rudolfinum

Ettinger Grigorian

San Carlo Theatre

"It is a simple and tremendous problem of life: that of fidelity", is how Hugo von Hofmannsthal described the core of their third opera together, Ariadne auf Naxos, in a letter to Richard Strauss. To live does not mean to persevere and hold on to what has been lost. If you want to live, you have to let go, forget, get over yourself - constantly transform yourself. This is what a young opera composer experiences in this work when he is confronted with the stubborn wishes of his patron; just like the protagonist of his opera, Ariadne, who, abandoned by her lover, Theseus, expects only death.

Ariadne on Naxos

Hamburg State Opera

The always-evolving Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble features musicians from the legendary Met Orchestra in a variety of unique programs. Together, along with special guest artists from the Metropolitan Opera and beyond, they explore a boundless world of chamber music, adapting to fit the instrumental needs of any piece—from all-time classics to hard-to-find hidden gems and standout works by many of today’s significant composers. In this Sunday matinee, they perform one of J. S. Bach’s legendary Brandenburg concertos, plus inventive arrangements of Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15.

The Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble 2025 Concert 2

Carnegie Hall

The Corvallis-OSU Symphony Orchestra is the oldest continuously operating orchestra in the state of Oregon. From its inception in 1906 as a collegiate orchestra composed of nine members, the symphony has grown into a full symphonic orchestra performing 3 major classical concerts, a holiday concert, and a children’s concert each season. Professional musicians from throughout the Willamette Valley are joined by talented community members, OSU faculty, and OSU students representing a wide span of majors across campus. Repertoire from recent seasons includes Strauss’ Alpine Symphony, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Ravel’s “Daphnis and Chloe,” and Brahms’ Fourth Symphony.

Corvallis-OSU Symphony Presents: Fall Concert

Oregon State University

Acclaimed conductor and Berkeley Symphony’s own Ming Luke conducts the 25/26 season’s third performance, Worlds Beyond. This program explores the artist’s voice at moments of transition and liminality.

Worlds Beyond

First Congregational Church of Berkeley

simmering sensation lingers beneath the surface: In "Shadows of Stillness," Nina Šenk captures the anxiety of the standstill during the first weeks of the coronavirus lockdown. A touch of escapism hangs over Richard Strauss's oboe concerto:its idyllic tone and transparent texture give little clue to the circumstances under which the work was created. It was the first multi-movement orchestral work written by Strauss, then already 81 years old, after the end of the Second World War, a "great, yet unemotional swan song for a destroyed musical language" (Reinhard Schulz). With the peppery third movement, "Furiant," Antonín Dvořák gave his Symphony No. 6 a distinctly Bohemian character—at the same time, many details reveal a close influence from Dvořák's friend and patron, Johannes Brahms. This symphony brought him worldwide fame.

3rd Symphony Concert

Eurogress Aachen

Three powerful works explore beauty, desire and loss in strikingly different ways. 
A fleeting and vivid portrait of spring, “D’un matin de printemps” offers one of the few glimpses of Lili Boulanger’s remarkable talent, written shortly before her untimely death at the age of 24.

Fulham Symphony Orchestra

Three powerful works explore beauty, desire and loss in strikingly different ways.
A fleeting and vivid portrait of spring, “D’un matin de printemps” offers one of the few glimpses of Lili Boulanger’s remarkable talent, written shortly before her untimely death at the age of 24.

Boulanger, Strauss and Zemlinsky

BNY Classics showcases unforgettable performances by your Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, featuring timeless masterpieces, thrilling premieres, and renowned guest artists.

Ferrández Plays Saint-Saëns

Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts

Making her debut with the TSO, Yura Lee solos on not one, but two instruments! In a rare turn, Lee will perform both the Walton Viola Concerto and Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending on violin on a program of contrasts.

Strauss and Britten

Linda Ronstadt Music Hall

Platoon, Death in Venice, 2001: A Space Odyssey… picture those classic movies and you can already hear the music of Samuel Barber, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. But there’s no cinema on earth that can beat the sound of a full symphony orchestra playing these masterpieces live. That’s what we’re doing tonight, and there’s a bonus feature too, as violinist James Ehnes premieres a brand-new showpiece by Hollywood legend James Newton Howard (The Sixth Sense, The Hunger Games).

Also sprach Zarathustra

Usher Hall

Johann Strauss II, the legendary Viennese Waltz King, was born in Vienna 200 years ago in 1825. However, he died a German, namely a citizen of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Out of love for Adele, the Imperial and Royal Court Ball music director renounced his Austrian citizenship and converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism – and this only because the Pope did not annul the Catholic marriage between Strauss and his second wife, Lilli. As an art connoisseur, Duke Ernst II gladly opened the doors to celebrity and was willing to make Strauss "his" citizen. Following naturalization, the Strauss couple were married in the court chapel of Ehrenburg Palace. In gratitude, Strauss dedicated the polka française "Neues Leben" (New Life) to the Duke. The anniversary concert "Straussiana" will feature works by Strauss's contemporaries, admirers, and the master himself. Of course, his non-blood-related namesake, Richard Strauss, who was himself a master of the late Romantic waltz, will also be featured. Star cellist Alexey Stadler will open his residency with "Don Quixote," a tone poem on a theme of chivalric character.

Straussiana

State Theatre Eisenach

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Perth Concert Hall

An exuberant joie de vivre characterizes Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's Symphony No. 4, which he began composing in Rome and Naples. Franz Schubert's budget never allowed a trip to Italy—but at least Italian opera was performed in Vienna. He supposedly bet his friends that he could compose overtures as lively as Rossini's, and subsequently created the overture "in the Italian style." Busoni's brilliant comedy overture also follows in the tradition of Rossini, but uses a late-Romantic orchestra, while Richard Strauss wrote his melancholic, serene oboe concerto for a deliberately small ensemble.

Italy!

Stadttheater Klagenfurt

Platoon, Death in Venice, 2001: A Space Odyssey… picture those classic movies and you can already hear the music of Samuel Barber, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. But there’s no cinema on earth that can beat the sound of a full symphony orchestra playing these masterpieces live. That’s what we’re doing tonight, and there’s a bonus feature too as violinist James Ehnes premieres a brand-new showpiece by Hollywood legend James Newton Howard (The Sixth Sense, The Hunger Games). The young musicians of Big Noise Raploch get the evening off to a rousing start with a special side-by-side with the musicians of the RSNO.

Perth Concert Series: Royal Scottish National Orchestra - Also Sprach Zarathustra

"An overwhelming piece of music with extreme emotions, phenomenally crafted, beautiful, wild, and very erotic," raved the British Guardian when the Budapest Festival Orchestra, with its founder and chief conductor Iván Fischer, released a recording of Richard Strauss's "Joseph's Legend" in 2018. Indeed, the story of the pious Joseph, who is first seduced and then coldly betrayed by the wife of the Egyptian court official Potiphar in the palace, leaves nothing to be desired musically – not least because Strauss deploys just about everything an orchestra has to offer: huge string and wind sections, several harps, piano, six timpani, castanets, and even an effervescent wind machine. A sound spectacle for which the Grand Hall of the Elbphilharmonie provides the ideal acoustics.

Budapest Festival Orchestra / Alina Ibragimova / Ivan Fischer

Strauss’s elegant romance brings the glamour and enchantment of 19th-century Vienna to the Met stage in a sumptuous production by legendary director Otto Schenk that “is as beautiful as one could hope” (The New York Times). Soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen makes her role debut as the title heroine, a young noblewoman in search of love on her own terms. Radiant soprano Louise Alder makes her Met debut as her sister, Zdenka, and bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny is the dashing count who sweeps Arabella off her feet.

Arabella

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

The Rosenkavalier

Staatstheater Hannover

OES Conductor and Artistic Director Beau Benson kicks off our 40th Season with a performance of Pendleton-born Hollywood composer Chris Thomas's Malheur Symphony. Originally commissioned by the Bowerman family in the wake of the Malheur Refuge Standoff, Malheur Symphony is a tone poem depicting the avian wildlife over the course of a day on the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon. Also to be presented is Richard Strauss's tone poem Don Juan, based on poet Nikolaus Lenue's play about the fictional Spanish libertine.

OES Fall Concert 2025

Vert Auditorium

Join us for a program of four journeys spanning one hundred years. We voyage to the sea and back in Benjamin Britten’s stunning interludes from his opera Peter Grimes, we encounter the afterlife as envisioned by Richard Strauss, we hope not to turn to stone with Stacy Garrop’s arresting Becoming Medusa, and we will be captivated by Igor Stravinsky’s depiction of love, struggle, and, ultimately, joy.

Orchestral Odysseys

The Forum Auditorium

Immerse yourself in vivid storytelling and orchestral brilliance! Strauss’s dramatic Don Juan pulses with energy, Billy Childs’ saxophone concerto Diaspora explores powerful jazz-inspired narratives, and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2 dazzles with captivating rhythms and lush, colorful harmonies.

Masterworks II: Diaspora

Adler Theatre

Centennial Hall Auditorium

A breathtaking symphonic journey through the stars, celebrating the iconic music that has defined our visions of space and the unknown. From the thunderous opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001: A Space Odyssey) to the heroic themes of Star Wars and Doctor Who, this program brings the vastness of the universe to life.

Music of the Cosmos

Hult Center for the Performing Arts

Celebrated conductor Marin Alsop leads the DSO in the tale of the notorious libertine, Don Juan. But the brilliant score by the then-just-24-year-old Richard Strauss shows us a different man…one who is world-and-pleasure-weary, bored with searching for the ideal woman. Beginning with Don’s theme — the rising thunder of horns — to sensuous love music of exquisite beauty; to the eerie, shuddering gestures of the iconic lover’s demise, Don Juan requires a virtuoso orchestra, especially horns. The graphic music scandalized the audience at the premiere but established young Strauss’ genius. Kathryn Bostic, award-winning composer of film, TV and Broadway music — whose accolades include being the first female African American score composer to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — pays homage to Gladys Bentley, African American blues singer of the Harlem Renaissance.

Alsop Conducts Brahms

Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center

Strauss, who conducted the Philharmonia himself in its early days, wrote to soprano Kirsten Flagstad that the piece ‘should be at your disposal for a world premiere … with a first-class conductor and orchestra’. And it was with the Philharmonia that she gave that first performance in 1950.

Wagner, Strauss & Tchaikovsky: Last Songs

Southbank Centre

Wagner's endlessly unresolved harmonies in Tristan and Isolde influenced composers for decades but it’s the emotional charge they convey that hits home.

Philharmonia Orchestra

The Anvil

In fitting fashion, the orchestral concert series at the Graz Music Association begins with a world premiere of Marcus Nigsch's Festmusik (Festive Music). Not only are the Graz Philharmonic celebrating an anniversary this year, but the wonderful Stefaniensaal in the Graz Music Association is also celebrating its 140th anniversary! A perfect match between hall and orchestra, which once again ensures special listening moments in this concert. Lise de la Salle's interpretation of Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 is followed by Richard Strauss's symphonic poem " Ein Heldenleben" (A Hero's Life) , with which Vassilis Christopoulos provides a counterpoint to the musical story of the anti-hero Till Eulenspiegel in this year's opening concert of the Graz Opera.

1st Music Association Concert

Stefaniensaal

Stylistically, the four pieces in this program display enormous differences, which is what makes the sequence of works so appealing. Nevertheless, there is also a common thread. What the compositions have in common is that their creators each thought outside the box and found inspiration therein. Clara Schumann was a famous piano virtuoso and then the wife of a very gifted composer; she adopted many a gesture and tone from him - her Romances of 1853 bear witness to this. Richard Strauss, on the other hand, was on the verge of making a significant name for himself as a composer of expansive tone poems for orchestra with huge scores. When he completed his violin sonata in 1887, the ecstasy evoked by Don Juan in the symphonic poem of the same name was already haunting his mind—this, too, is unmistakable. Karol Szymanowski, on the other hand, was deeply inspired by the play of colors of Impressionism, particularly by the music of Claude Debussy, as the three "Myths" from 1915 bear eloquent witness. Maurice Ravel was also among the Impressionists; in his violin sonata, completed in 1937, however, he turned in a completely different direction—toward America and the blues. No creative mind works on its own; everyone needs inspiration, even if it comes from foreign gardens.

Concert Frolova/Stanev: From Foreign Gardens

Stefan Dohr is a living legend. The principal horn player of the Berlin Philharmonic is considered one of the best in the world, if not the best horn player of the present time. Together with the brass players of our orchestra, he opens up a whole musical world, ranging from the brass serenades of Antonín Dvořák and Richard Strauss to Bernstein's "West Side Story" and the famous fanfare by Aaron Copland, composed in 1942 for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, which still stands for the strength and unwavering spirit of the "ordinary person." This exclamation also has a response! It comes from Joan Tower, whose "Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman" also comes from the American music tradition and highlights the extraordinary role of women - powerful, yet in their own way.

Dvořák and Bernstein

Palace of Culture

Childlike joy accompanied by pomp and lots of solo passages: the exciting programme conducted by François Leleux gives our woodwind players a chance to shine in two works. The charming Sinfonietta by English composer Ruth Gipps was composed in 1989 and is full of magical colours. While still a student, but already possessing enormous artistry, Richard Strauss composed his charming Serenade in E-flat major in 1881, in which the young Munich composer's enthusiasm for Mozart is clearly evident – and one of Mozart's works is also featured in this programme: In an interpretative interplay with our solo bassoonist Rie Koyama, we present his well-loved concerto for the slenderly upright woodwind instrument. Mozart wrote it in 1774 at the age of 18, which is why it also spreads youthful freshness. In Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s Opus 102 for oboe and orchestra, our guest conductor performs the solo part himself. It dates from 1824, begins with a melancholic introduction and then unfolds an airy theme that is the springboard for brilliant variations. The programme concludes with a magnificent piece by Ravel, whose 150th birthday is being celebrated by the music world this year. 

François Leleux, Rie Koyama

Bamberger Symphoniker

KONTRAST - Vor Frelsers Church

Church of Our Saviour, Copenhagen

Awaken your heart with two distinct visions of love: Strauss’ Don Juan, a man’s restless pursuit of passion; and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, a fated tale of love at its purest. Led by Jader Bignamini, the concert also features Wynton Marsalis’ bold Herald, Holler, and Hallelujah and Gershwin’s jazz-infused Piano Concerto in F with soloist Hélène Grimaud.

Don Juan & Romeo and Juliet Grimaud plays Gershwin

Every Wednesday during the season, DKDM opens the doors to an hour of chamber music in the city's churches and concert halls. The programs are curated by the students and range from the well-known classical repertoire to newer works with edge and sonic discovery - always framed with knowledge, perspective and personality by Associate Professor Søren Schauser.

Wednesday Concert in Garnisons Church

Garnisonkirken

"Thus fate knocks at the door ," Beethoven is said to have said about the motto-like beginning of his Fifth - whether true or legend, with this work it becomes fateful, political and revolutionary. It is regarded as perfectly formed and complete in its design: the archetype of a symphony. This is probably why it has been orbiting the universe on board a space probe since 1977, Beethoven's memorial year, preserved on a gilded record as a human finest hour for future or extraterrestrial life. While Beethoven's symphony was written in the context of the Napoleonic Wars, Richard Strauss wrote his Metamorphosen 80 years ago, shortly before the end of the Second World War. Impressed by the cities lying in ruins, especially bombed-out Munich, he composed this expressive late work, a lament for 23 solo voices.

2nd Philharmonic Concert / Fixed Points

Volkstheater Rostock

Two works that create their own musical universes: the Symphonic Suite from Richard Wagner’s »Götterdämmerung« condenses the finale of »Der Ring des Nibelungen«, itself a musical vision of the end of time, steeped in fate, splendour and destruction. Richard Strauss responded a good quarter of a century later with his own vision of the artist as hero. Rather than depicting a myth of ancient times, his symphonic poem »Ein Heldenleben« is an astonishing self-portrait. Nine months after the world premiere, Ernst von Schuch conducted the Dresden premiere in the presence of the composer, who was called to the stage four times. The press spoke of »rapturous applause« and »a sensational concert thanks to Strauss«.

Symphony Concert N° 3

Semperoper Dresden

Under the elegant direction of British conductor Leo Hussain and with the radiant presence of South African soprano Nombulelo Yende – Pretty's little sister – pure emotion, orchestral virtuosity and the dramatic power of lyric art come together. The program opens with a sparkling suite from Mozart's Idomeneo where grace meets dramatic intensity. Then, let yourself be enchanted by Puccini and his piece for strings composed in one night under the influence of intense emotion. The famous Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila by Saint-Saëns then sets the stage ablaze with its oriental colors and captivating rhythms. Finally, Richard Strauss closes this exceptional evening with excerpts from Capriccio , his "conversation in music" where the introductory Sextet, of unequaled harmonic subtlety, precedes the Final Scene, sublimated by the unique timbre of Nombulelo Yende. A dazzling tribute between classical grandeur, Puccinian lyricism, sensual exoticism and Straussian sophistication.

The great masters

Opéra Comédie

Orchestral Fantasies

West Side Presbyterian Church

Enter an enchanted world where witches gather in Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, skeletons dance in Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre, and trolls scamper through Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”. With Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration and evocative works by Liadov and Sibelius, this hauntingly beautiful program will leave you spellbound. Costumes welcome!

CVSO: Music Under Moonlight

Pablo Center at the Confluence

In recent years, violinist Renaud Capuçon has also distinguished himself as a conductor. With the OPRL, he takes us into the tender and loving world of Wagner's Siegfried-Idyll , a work dedicated to his wife Cosima, where themes from his opera Siegfried resonate . He also explores this theme of marital intimacy through the Interludes from Richard Strauss's opera Intermezzo , while highlighting, this time with the bow, the inexhaustible freshness of Mozart's violin, without forgetting to present the new creation of Camille Pépin, a young Frenchwoman whose energetic music cultivates joyful atmospheres.

Siegfried Idyll

Philharmonic Hall of Liege

Grand Théâtre de Provence

Johann Strauss II, the legendary Viennese Waltz King, was born in Vienna 200 years ago in 1825. However, he died a German, namely a citizen of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Out of love for Adele, the Imperial and Royal Court Ball music director renounced his Austrian citizenship and converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism – and this only because the Pope did not annul the Catholic marriage between Strauss and his second wife, Lilli. As an art connoisseur, Duke Ernst II gladly opened the doors to celebrity and was willing to make Strauss "his" citizen. Following naturalization, the Strauss couple were married in the court chapel of Ehrenburg Palace. In gratitude, Strauss dedicated the polka française "Neues Leben" (New Life) to the Duke.

A2 Straussiana

Gotha City Hall

Brian Manker and James Box step out of their usual roles in the orchestra to deliver breathtaking performances as soloists. The program features works shaped by philosophical and spiritual influences, as Strauss, Wagner, Bloch, and Moussa each explore profound themes in their own unique way. Strauss’ piece, a symphonic poem inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical work Thus Spoke Zarathustra, opens with a majestic introduction made world-famous by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. An unmissable concert bringing together striking music, deep reflection, and masterful artistry.

Composer

Richard Strauss

Events

Upcoming events

May 11, 2025 - May 10, 2026

6th Chamber Concert · Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg

Sep 20, 2025 - Jul 11, 2026

Wie du warst! Wie du bist! · Opernhaus Zürich

Oct 18, 2025 - Feb 15, 2026

The Rosenkavalier · Theater Lübeck

Nov 22, 2025 - Jan 3, 2026

Salome · Komische Oper Berlin

14 - 23 Dec, 2025

Elektra · Wiener Staatsoper

Past events

Dec 18, 2025

Concert of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna · Wiener Philharmoniker

Dec 16, 2025

Transfigured Night · Cadogan Hall

About

Richard Strauss hasn't added a bio

Composer

Richard Strauss

Events

Upcoming events

May 11, 2025 - May 10, 2026

6th Chamber Concert · Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg

Sep 20, 2025 - Jul 11, 2026

Wie du warst! Wie du bist! · Opernhaus Zürich

Oct 18, 2025 - Feb 15, 2026

The Rosenkavalier · Theater Lübeck

Nov 22, 2025 - Jan 3, 2026

Sa­lo­me · Komische Oper Berlin

14 - 23 Dec, 2025

Elektra · Wiener Staatsoper

Past events

Dec 18, 2025

Concert of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna · Wiener Philharmoniker

Dec 16, 2025

Transfigured Night · Cadogan Hall

About

Richard Strauss hasn't added a bio

Salome · Komische Oper Berlin