Nürnberger Symphoniker

Verwandlungen - Metamorphosen, Paraphrasen
Soloist: Ying Li, piano
Conductor: Jonathan Darlington

They may be the most profound, moving and artistically accomplished work Richard Strauss ever wrote: the Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings - a music of mourning and lamentation, of pain and grief, composed under the impression of a Germany reduced to rubble in the "zero hour" of 1945. Strauss's Metamorphosen is paired meaningfully with Liszt's paraphrase on the Gregorian Dies Irae sequence from the Requiem. That "Day of Wrath" is conjured as a truly diabolical Danse macabre for piano and orchestra - thunderously powerful at the keyboard and of fascinatingly furious virtuosity. Taking the piano part is Chinese-American star pianist Ying Li.

After the Totentanz and the music of mourning, the "happy" close comes with the first of Brahms's two Serenades, in which the late-Romantic composer shows himself relaxed and in the best of spirits. Happy End.

Copyright: Torsten Hönig