Rise and Shine

Both Elvis Presley and Stanley Kubrick were partial to a (Richard) Strauss sunrise, and his early morning wake-up call for Zarathustra gives us one of music’s most glorious openings ever. The rest of it isn’t half bad either. Strauss’s take on Nietzsche is philosophy “lite” but “full fat” on flair. Gregorian chant, mathematical puzzles and an uplifting Viennese waltz are all whizzed up in a blender to create one of the most sumptuous orchestral p...