Richard Strauss was a composer who was both celebrated and censured in his own time. He himself said of his work, 'I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer!' Tonight's concert features three works from his rich and diverse oeuvre, each with a completely different character from the others. The four songs of Vier letzte Lieder constitute the elderly master's final major work, as well as his best-known vocal composition, written for solo voice and orchestra. Even here, he speaks in the musical language of his youth, but avoiding extremes and pretentiousness, and with the wisdom of old age. The closing trio from Der Rosenkavalier, the passage in which Strauss shows everything he knows about bel canto singing and women, evokes the atmosphere of his operas. Eine Alpensinfonie, for its part, is one of the longest symphonic poems ever written; it takes the orchestra together with the listener on a great journey, with the music used as a means to express an entire day trekking the Alps, through the forest, across streams and up to a glacier.

Presented by: Hungarian Radio Art Groups