Richard Strauss: An Alpine Symphony | Giuseppe Sinopoli and the Staatskapelle Dresden

The Staatskapelle Dresden celebrated its 450th anniversary with a concert held on September 22, 1998 in Dresden’s Semperoper. For the occasion, Giuseppe Sinopoli (1946-2001) conducted An Alpine Symphony by Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949). The choice of work for the anniversary celebration could not have been more appropriate: Strauss had dedicated his symphony to the time-honored Saxon orchestra, which had previously premiered several of his operas. For the work’s 1915 premiere in Berlin, the Staatskapelle was conducted by the composer himself. An Alpine Symphony, Op. 64 is a remarkable work in many regards. In it, Richard Strauss musically interprets an experience from his own youth. At the age of fifteen, he had been caught in a heavy thunderstorm whilst hiking in the mountains. He wrote to a friend that he had reimagined the event the next day on the piano. Many years later, his memory of the event gave rise to the first sketches for ’Eine Alpensinfonie’. As the title suggests, Strauss