Luzerner sinfonieorchester | Michael sanderling | Joyce el-khoury by Various, ol. 26 abu. 2022, Noiztik (2022/2022), Zuzendaria Michael Sanderling, KKL Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland

She was the first woman to win the coveted “Prix de Rome”: what other marvels would the French composer Lili Boulanger have brought to the music world if she had not died in 1918 at the age of only 24? Michael Sanderling recalls this highly gifted composer with the delicate tonal painting D’un matin de printemps. He then conducts two farewell works. Richard Strauss is represented by the Four Last Songs, his beauty-drunk swan song to Romantic music. The weightless melismas and jubilant flights of fancy of the solo part will be sung by Joyce El-Khoury; born in Lebanon, she is now involved in humanitarian and educational work for her home country. After intermission, Tchaikovsky’s famous Pathétique will be heard, ending with a fade-out, like a death depicted in music. That the composer actually died of cholera, with which he may have deliberately infected himself, just days after the world premiere seems macabre. “Tchaikovsky was a torn personality, he never really found his place in society,” Sanderling believes. He will pay homage to the Sixth as a poignant requiem.