12 THE OBC AND STRAUSS’ ALPINE SYMPHONY

Repertoire

TAKEMITSU: November Steps

R. STRAUSS: Eine Alpensinfonie

Artists

Kazushi Ono, conductor
Kumiko Shuto, biwa
Kifu Mitsuhashi, shakuhachi

Program

Richard Strauss, in the Alpine Symphony, sculpts a spectacular work that transports listeners to the summit of the mountains, by way of trickling streams, cascading waterfalls and grazing animals.The Alpine Symphony is one of the favourite orchestral works of the Straussians. Written in 1915, this work describes for us eleven hours of adventures of a mountain climber. Strauss composed the Alpine in a time of his life in which he was centred in his operas. For this reason, more than being a descriptive work of the adventures of a mountaineer, The Alpine is an opera without voices, in which a brave protagonist faces the forces of nature. In fact, Strauss was not biographically alien to the world of the mountain: in 1908, he built a house in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Bavaria), one of his favourite places to compose. On the other hand, the imaginary hero of this symphony has an undeniable coexistence with Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, a hermit who makes nature, often inhospitable, into his refuge. If there is a composer far removed from the bombastic Straussian sound, it is the Japanese Toru Takemitsu. November Steps is one of his many compositions, where the author uses traditional instruments from his country, such as the biwa and shakuhachi. Inspired by the work of Debussy, the composition is an essay on sonic and aesthetic differences that exist between Western and oriental music.