Composer

Strauss’s eulogy to the world he knew and loved is an outpouring of emotion, and one of his most intimate works. Metamorphosen is paired with other works that extract maximum power from small forces: Berio’s virtuosic Sequenza and the world premiere of Bahar Royaee’s viola concerto.

EPSG:4326

Metamorphosen

First Church of Christ Scientist

Our third program features two of my favorite composers, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss.

Tchaikovsky didn’t have an easy life. After his failed—actually, disastrous—marriage and subsequent suicide attempt by drowning in the Moscow River, Tchaikovsky’s patron, Nadezhda von Meck, gave the composer money for a holiday. She told him, “Go away, go away from Russia—go to Switzerland and recover your spirits.” And so, he did. On this trip, Tchaikovsky was accompanied by a friend, the violinist Josef Kotek. When they arrived in Switzerland, they had a lot of time to kill, so together, they read through tons of violin music.

Tchaikovsky & Strauss

Terrace Theater, Long Beach Performing Arts Center

A program of legendary figures—both real and imagined—features the Annapolis debut of two-time Grammy-winning soprano Angel Blue performing a selection of operatic works. Known for her radiant voice and commanding stage presence, Blue has graced the world’s leading opera houses. In this special performance, she shares her extraordinary artistry with ASO audiences, including a repertoire of extraordinary and timeless pieces, making this an experience you don’t want to miss!

Legends

Maryland Hall

An evening of exhilarating energy and lush, stunning melodies awaits as the orchestra brings iconic masterpieces to life. Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto amazes with virtuosic fire and soul-stirring melodies, setting the stage for the glittering charm of Strauss’ Rosenkavalier waltzes — pure elegance with a playful twist. Then, Ravel’s La Valse sweeps you into a whirlwind of dazzling orchestration, where a waltz starts with grace and spirals into something wild, hypnotic, and outright thrilling.

Waltzing Through Winter

The Grand Opera House

Things are heating up in the Faninal household! The nouveau riche is eagerly awaiting the wedding of his daughter Sophie - it is to be a noble groom. However, it is not the intended candidate, the Baron Ochs, who will win Sophie's heart, but the bearer of the silver engagement rose: the young Count Octavian. Before his secret lover, the Feldmarschallin, releases Octavian for the union, Baron Ochs is publicly disgraced in a suburban pub ...

The Rosenkavalier

Volksoper Wien

From its mysterious introduction to its buoyant finale, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto brings the listener on a stirring journey. Violinist María Dueñas (“nothing short of remarkable,” Gramophone) makes her NY Phil debut as the soloist in this apex of the violin repertoire. Conductor Manfred Honeck offers his own arrangement of music from Richard Strauss’s opera Elektra, one of that composer’s most intoxicating scores.

Elektra Suite & Beethoven’s Violin Concerto

David Geffen Hall

In 1891, Richard Strauss read Don Quixote, a novel of adventurous knightly tales by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, which had been suggested to him by Cosima Wagner. The book must have made a lasting impression on the composer. He worked on the symphonic poem for six years before it premiered in Cologne in 1898. British cellist Steven Isserlis will lend his instrument’s voice to the title character. Always by his side: Sancho Panza, brought to life by the violist Emiko Yuasa – who has been the First Principal Viola of the BRSO since last March. We are delighted to welcome back Daniel Harding, who will transport us into mythical worlds in this concert – which also include Hans Werner Henze’s Erlkönig. Between the two works, Haydn’s “La passione” in F minor will provide an intense, even existential experience.

Daniel Harding | Don Quixote

Munich Residence

Richard Strauss spent the first half of his career producing a string of opulent, proto-cinematic tone poems that redefined orchestral virtuosity. The most epic of them is also the consummate musical autobiography. Ein Heldenleben is a picture of ambition, bravery and resilience which combines music of unprecedented richness, excitement and tenderness. Strauss’s bold orchestration might scatter its adversaries with panache but it concludes with a humbling glimpse of life’s spiritual journey. Before it, Giuseppe Gibboni is the soloist for the spirited momentum and tender repose of OPO Composer-in-Residence Alexey Shor’s Violin Concerto No. 7.

Ein Heldenleben

Oxford Town Hall

Guest Concert

Stadthalle am Schloss

Based on Oscar Wilde’s one-act play, Salome has been thrilling and fascinating audiences for more than a century. Lyric Opera of Chicago brings Sir David McVicar’s decadent production — which is set in 1940s fascist Italy and sheds a harsh light on the timeless greed and entitlement of the elite — to Chicago.

This gory thrill ride returns to Lyric for the first time in 20 years starring Elena Stikhina in the demanding title role of a teenage femme fatale whose infatuation has fatal implications, alongside Lyric favorites Brandon Jovanovich and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner.

Salome

Lyric Opera House

At the beginning of one of the most famous sunrises in music history: radiant and majestic, maximum light intensity from zero to one hundred within seconds. Richard Strauss's Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a magnificent masterpiece whose splendor no one can escape.

Life puzzles

Cologne Philharmonie


Marielle Murphy, a native of Carmel, California, is establishing an exciting career as coloratura soprano on opera and concert stages in the United States and Europe, in traditional as well as highly innovative productions. She made her European debut at the Salzburg Festival in Massenet’s Thaïs with Plàcido Domingo and the Munich Radio Orchestra, and numerous engagements in European opera houses quickly followed. Marielle made her debut at New York's Metropolitan Opera in the 2023/24 season as Oscar in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera and returned to the Met in the 2024/25 season in Richard Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten. For several years she has been based in Münster, Germany, where she is a leading soloist in the opera ensemble of the Theater Münster.

Marielle is accompanied by pianist Alden Gatt, assistant conductor of the Frankfurt Opera and performer at major venues around the world.

Marielle Murphy & Alden Gatt

Sunset Center

A small but perfectly formed group of musicians from Royal Northern Sinfonia and, leading proceedings, Maria Włoszczowska.

Beethoven's Septet

The Glasshouse International Centre for Music

With a captivating program, the hr-Symphony Orchestra's chamber concert enriches this season's Lauterbach Hohhaus Concerts. Franz Schubert's "Arpeggione" Sonata is among the Viennese Romantic composer's most famous chamber works. Its sonorous soundscape makes it a truly virtuosic piece, which can be experienced alongside two brilliantly compelling chamber music works from the early years of the great operatic dramatist Richard Strauss. The 19-year-old Strauss's Piano Quartet in C minor is considered the pinnacle of his engagement with Brahms. His only violin sonata, composed at the age of 23, was also a stroke of genius.

Arpeggione

Hohhaus Museum Lauterbach e.V.

Hessischer Rundfunk

We open this series by honoring the memory of Boise composer David Alan Earnest with a performance of his thrilling overture Turbulence, composed for the Boise Phil in 2013. For these performances, we will be joined by the talented BPYO seniors. Next, Boise Phil Principal Cellist Philip Kettler joins us for Saint-Saëns’ lyrical Cello Concerto No. 1. The program concludes with Ravel’s elegant Le Tombeau de Couperin and Richard Strauss’ lush Der Rosenkavalier Suite. Both Ravel and Strauss connect through their nostalgic nods to the past: Ravel pays homage to the Baroque era and two friends lost in World War 1, blending grace and clarity with 20th-century style, while Strauss evokes the lavish charm and romanticism of a bygone Viennese world.

Ravel & Strauss

Boise State University

Honor memories of time gone by and the resilience of the human spirit with this special concert featuring standing-ovation favorites. BPYO seniors join in a performance of the late David Alan Earnest’s thrilling overture Turbulence before Boise Phil’s Principal Cellist Philip Kettler takes center stage for Saint-Saëns’ evocative and technically stunning Concerto for Cello No. 1. Then, Ravel pays homage to the Baroque era and two friends lost in World War I in Le Tombeau de Couperin. The evening closes with charm and romanticism of a Viennese world in Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier Suite.

Morrison Center for the Performing Arts

"Does it not seem as if Mozart's works become fresher and fresher the oftener we hear them?" - Robert Schumann

Mozart's A Little Night Music

Washington Pavilion

Family Chamber Concert

Your Symphony’s new year begins with Gabriela Lena Frank’s Escaramuza (meaning “skirmish” in Spanish) — a dynamic and colorful work inspired by her Peruvian heritage. This spirited piece captures the energy of the lively Kachampa Andean dance celebrating the agility and strength of Inca warriors. Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier Suite is a symphonic distillation of his beloved opera, bursting with elegance, humor, and romantic nostalgia — sweeping waltzes and tender love duets that have enchanted audiences for more than a century. Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 is a monumental work that combines virtuosic piano passages with symphonic grandeur. One of our favorite pianists, the magisterial Yefim Bronfman, brings his formidable technique and interpretative depth to this masterpiece. The sheer beauty of this work will lift our spirits to start a new year together.

Heartbeat

Overture Center for the Arts

Although Bruckner placed his symphonic work in the tradition of Beethoven, he could not equal the great Ludwig: his Ninth Symphony remained unfinished, with several incomplete versions of the finale. Aware of his imminent end, he left a majestic score that the extraordinary Marko Letonja, a regular guest of the OPRL, will magnify: a devastating scherzo framed by slow movements that resonate like a final farewell to life. Bruckner's sonic testament... At the end of his life, Richard Strauss composed a final bouquet of vocal pieces, the Four Last Songs, peaceful swan songs tinged with melancholy.

Bruckner 9

UCLouvain

Philharmonic Hall of Liege

Grand Manège

World-renowned violinist Janine Jansen will make several guest appearances this season at the Swedish Radio Concert Hall, Berwaldhallen. Together with the legendary conductor Antonio Pappano and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, she will perform Johannes Brahms' technically challenging and musically virtuosic Violin Concerto in D major, written for the legendary violinist Joseph Joachim. After the intermission, Pappano will lead the orchestra in Richard Strauss' early symphonic poem Aus Italien , which depicts Italy's landscapes, history, and folk life in four movements.

Janine Jansen in Brahms’ violin concerto

Berwaldhallen

We're taking a trip to the other side of the globe to meet Jessica Cottis, who grew up on her family's sheep farm in southeastern Australia. From there, she has a deep connection to nature, which is reflected in her passion for programs that explore music's relationship with nature and science.

Award-winning soloist sings Vier letzte Lieder

Alsion Concert Hall

South Jutland Hall

Till Eulenspiegel

Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz

A dubious meeting of heroes: The notorious womanizer Don Juan and the tragicomic Don Quixote would have little in common if Richard Strauss hadn't so brilliantly captured their fates in music. The Vienna Philharmonic will juxtapose the two symphonic poems in their ProArte program, bringing to life the stories of the literary-confused knight with his aide Sancho Panza and the momentous love affairs of the other Don. At the helm will be Daniel Harding, arguably one of the most interesting conductors of our time: after a meteoric start to his career, he put his baton aside for a while to pursue his second passion, flying as a pilot for Air France. Now, fortunately for audiences, he regularly conducts the finest orchestras again. Perhaps he'll even fly to the performance himself? Who knows.

Vienna Philharmonic / Daniel Hardin

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

Concert in Hamburg

Concert in Cologne

Museum Ludwig

We are excited to bring back one of our most loved and honored soloists, the Grammy-nominated pianist Joyce Yang, in a program balancing the masterful First Concerto of Beethoven with three orchestral visions of the story of Romeo and Juliet. Brilliant masterworks of Strauss, Prokofiev and Diamond complete this compelling program.

Joyce Yang

Heritage Theatre

San Mateo High School

5th Subscription Concert

Vienna Music Society

We’re bringing back one of our former Young Artists Competition Grand Prize winners, Amaryn Olmeda.  She’s gone on to have a big international career, and we’re lucky to have her return to play Barber’s beautiful Violin Concerto.
We’ll also feature Mozart’s Symphony No. 38 and a special spotlight on our wind section with Strauss’s Wind Serenade.

Masterworks II: Amaryn Olmeda & Mozart 38

Placer High School Theater

Have you ever wondered if your life deserves a film score? Richard Strauss wrote it long ago: "A Hero's Life." Fifty minutes full of drama, passion, and triumph – the perfect...

Heroic Life

Pfalzbau Ludwigshafen

A "mix of mythological drama and pastoral romance" (The New York Times). Daphne finds romance in the beauty and celebration of nature, not in the arms of men. When two suitors vie for her heart, Apollo aims his arrow and Daphne mourns the loss of a childhood friend. To ease her grief, Zeus grants her wish to become one with nature, allowing her to transform into one of her beloved laurel trees.

Daphne in Concert

Seattle Center

A troubled prince, a tragic heroine and the Vienna of your dreams. Tchaikovsky and Mel Bonis embraced the world of Hamlet with all the fervour of true romantics. Richard Strauss, meanwhile, let his flair for storytelling have free rein in his opera Der Rosenkavalier: a delirious whirl of waltzes, wit, and love in all its colours, all on show in this suite.

Clemens Schuldt conducts Strauss and Phibbs

Barbican Centre

2nd Soirée

Under the direction of General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski, the Bavarian State Orchestra will perform three European works from the fin de siècle to the 1920s, which, in their contrasts, reflect the upheavals of the early 20th century. Sergei Rachmaninoff’s symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead , inspired by the haunting gloom of Arnold Böcklin’s painting of the same name, will be contrasted by Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, with which Italian pianist Beatrice Rana will make her Bavarian State Opera debut. The concerto, perfectly formed in classicism, embodies the radiant optimism of the 1920s with elements of blues and jazz. Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra stands between the melancholy of the afterlife and the affirmation of life: first performed in 1896 at the end of the 19th century, this tone poem, rich in contrast and unresolved in its conflicts, already points the way to what is to come. The modernity of the composition, which was expected with suspicion and received with astonishment in its time, is demonstrated not least by its use in Stanley Kubrick's monumental film 2001: A Space Odyssey , which in turn points far into the future.

Guest concert of the Bavarian State Orchestra

Queen Elisabeth Hall

Philharmonie Luxembourg

Cité de la Musique

Embark on a journey through grand themes and musical innovation, from Rachmaninov’s haunting The Isle of the Dead to Ligeti’s revolutionary Atmosphères, and Ravel’s vibrant Piano Concerto in G with its jazzy flair and tender melodies. The Bayerisches Staatsorchester, one of the world’s oldest orchestras, brings its rich tradition to the Queen Elisabeth Hall under the inspired baton of Vladimir Jurowski. French piano legend Hélène Grimaud graces the stage with her unmatched artistry. The evening culminates in Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra, with its iconic opening and sweeping drama. A concert of introspection, experimentation, and grandeur that will leave a lasting impression.

Hélène Grimaud and the Bayerisches Staatsorchester

Katharina Wincor, in her Hallé conducting debut, will be joined by Anna Lapwood to perform Joseph Jongen’s Symphonie concertante. Composed in 1926, this electrifying piece has been cemented as one of the greatest twentieth-century works for organ and orchestra. From resounding opening to blazing end, we have the rare opportunity to hear the organ take a virtuosic starring role.

Anna Lapwood Plays…

The Bridgewater Hall

Katharina Wincor, in her Hallé conducting debut, will be joined by Anna Lapwood to perform Joseph Jongen’s Symphonie concertante, celebrating the ‘king of instruments’. Composed in 1926, this electrifying piece has been cemented as one of the greatest twentieth-century works for organ and orchestra. From resounding opening to blazing end, we have the rare opportunity to hear the magnificent Bridgewater Hall organ take a virtuosic starring role. Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier is a firm audience favourite, and the composer’s influence is woven throughout Korngold’s Schauspiel-Ouvertüre, which opens the programme. Premiering when Korngold was just 14 – having already had huge success with earlier works including his Der Schneemann (The Snowman) ballet at age 11 – the overture has many flavours of his later cinematic works.

The Hallé – Anna Lapwood Plays...

Between his performances of The Well-Tempered Clavier, this season’s curator Mahan Esfahani will make room to honour his reputation as a bold musical explorer. In a thoughtfully assembled programme, he brings together Czech and international works of the 20th-century — paying tribute to Viktor Kalabis and shining a light on the inventive, though lesser-known, Henry Cowell. The evening’s climax will be Falla’s Harpsichord Concerto, interpreted by some of the Czech Republic’s finest musicians.

Czech Chamber Music Society • Mahan Esfahani

Rudolfinum

3rd Academy Concert: Vladimir Jurowski

Max-Joseph-Platz

This is music that seems to lift the world upside down: a constant sparkle and glitter, sweeping melodies, and long stretches in which the music builds in relentless intensification toward solitary climaxes. Richard Strauss was just 24 years old when he composed his first masterpiece, Don Juan . A piece like a Ferrari: such overwhelming richness, brilliance, and diversity of orchestral sound had never been heard before, nor had music of such compelling vitality. Take a look under the hood with us!

2nd Concert Deep Dive: Immerse yourself in “Don Juan”

Konzerthaus Dortmund

Carl St.Clair, longtime Music Director of the Pacific Symphony, returns to conduct the Charleston Symphony for a program of remarkable music from two of Germany’s late Romantic-era composers. Guest soloist Aubree Oliverson performs Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1, a favorite that demands and demonstrates a soloist’s skillfulness. Hearing Strauss’s “Alpine Symphony” live is not an opportunity you want to miss. 

Bruch’s Violin Concerto

Gaillard Center

Celebrated pianist Leif Ove Andsnes tours the world with Beethoven’s piano concertos. Now he returns to Gothenburg with the light and gently floaty Piano Concerto No. 3. Conductor Magnus Fryklund and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra also present festive New Year music.

Beethoven with Leif Ove Andsnes

Göteborgs Symfoniker

Romanticism is the 19th century; it is the magic of nature and great emotion, it is the deaths of love and the bliss of redemption. But this era was also filled with the passionate energy of dances and lavish celebrations.

Epiphany Concert 2026: Salzburg Wind Philharmonic | "Music of the Romantic Period"

Great Festival House

During the Twelfth Night weekend, Norrlandsoperan" class="css-u850">Norrlandsoperan opens its doors for a glittering, high-class opera gala with carefully selected treats for opera connoisseurs and beginners alike. Swedish rising star Rebecka Wallroth makes her debut at Norrlandsoperan and as the male counterpart we hear the well-known tenor Per Lindström.

The evening begins in the good spirit of La Scala with Italian splendor. Rebecka Wallroth sets the tone with the famous Rossini aria “Una voce poco fa” from The Barber of Seville followed by the duet “Un soave non so che” from Cinderella by the same composer. This is followed by another soprano number from the bel canto repertoire, this time from Bellini’s opera I Capuleti ei Montecchi . The first set is rounded off in grand style by Per Lindström with Puccini’s beloved tenor arias “E lucevan le stelle” from Tosca and “Che gelida manina” from La Bohème.

Thirteenth Day Concert

Norrlandsoperan

A sparkling New Year's celebration with Martyn Brabbins and guests! 

With glitter and champagne we celebrate the new year atMalmö Live Concert Halland hearMalmö Symphony Orchestrashine with sparkling virtuosity.  

New Year's Gala 2025

Malmo Live Concert Hall

Celebrate the arrival of the new year with a dazzling New Year’s concert at the Opera House. As the year draws to a close, the Royal Danish Theatre invites audiences to a grand musical celebration, with the Royal Danish Orchestra performing on the Opera’s Main Stage.

New Year’s Concert at the Opera House 2025

The Royal Playhouse and The Old Stage

4th Subscription Concert

Concert of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna

Musikverein Wien

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

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.

Transfigured Night

Cadogan Hall 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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.

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

Jan 24 - Feb 15, 2026

Arpeggione · Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra

Jan 25 - Feb 14, 2026

Salome · Lyric Opera of Chicago

Past events

Jan 31 - Feb 1, 2026

Metamorphosen · Left Coast Chamber Ensemble

Jan 31, 2026

Tchaikovsky & Strauss · Long Beach Symphony

About

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