7. Sinfoniekonzert by Strauss, sø. 12 mars 2023, Fra (2023/2023), Dirigent Michael Sanderling, Weimarhalle, Weimar, Germany

Even as a young man, Richard Strauss dared to fly one orchestral high after the other, and Nietzsche's prophetic language, full of power and musicality, really challenged him to do so. However, in his Opus 30, completed in 1896, Goethe's »Faust« theme also seems to have resonated. It goes at least as well with the mystical intensity of the ingenious orchestral fantasy as the eponymous »Zarathustra«. This is how feelings and desires surge and ferment – ​​in a masterfully designed, quasi-symphonic format – longing goes against nature and good stands against evil. Man may indeed be called to higher things – he would also have to want it… The "Four Last Songs" are regarded as an artistic and also personal legacy of the aging Strauss, from which the serenity at the end of an 80-year life as an artist speaks just as much as the grief over war and loss. Retreat and self-reflection were the consequence for Strauss, who composed the songs in 1948 to poems by Hesse and Eichendorf, while also alluding to his own composition "Death and Transfiguration" and to Brahms' Requiem. Music full of hope for the hereafter, filled with the urge to delve once more into the beauty of the past. The "Entrance of the Knights of St. John", composed in 1909, rolls out the red carpet for this program with a magnificent sound.