Klaus Mäkelä conducts Richard Strauss’s “Alpine Symphony”

The moods in Wolfgang Rihm’s Transitus III often change abruptly: sometimes the music is powerful and energetic, sometimes dream-like and introspective, sometimes dramatic and upbeat. It is an orchestral piece that with intricate artistry and late Romantic pathos unfolds as if in a frenzy. Klaus Mäkelä contrasts Rihm’s compact composition with Richard Strauss’s opulent Alpine Symphony, his last and most elaborate tone poem. The extravagantly large orchestral scoring includes a heckelphone, four tenor tubas, two harps, an organ, wind and thunder machines, cowbells, a tam-tam, a celesta, and a 16-piece off-stage orchestra with no fewer than 12 horns for the echo effects of the hunting scenes.

This cinematographic musical fresco was inspired by an all-day mountain hike at Walchensee, which made a deep impression on the then 15-year-old composer. Strauss never forgot the subject matter, even though it was to take him more than 30 years to give the experience its final musical form. The arching narrative is easy to follow: from the introductory night and the sunrise, to the stages of the ascent and the happy conquest of the summit, where a hesitant oboe song illustrates the overwhelming feeling of the imaginary hiker at the sight of the sublime mountains. This is followed by a change in the weather, in which the sun darkens to the elegy of the cor anglais and heckelphone, and a huge orchestral thunderstorm begins to rage. At the end is the sunset – followed by a contemplative finale accompanied by the organ, until the music returns in descending scales into the darkness of the night.

Berliner Philharmoniker

Klaus Mäkelä