Strauss’ swan song
In 1948, the 84-year-old Strauss wrote perhaps his most beloved composition, the Vier letzte Lieder. He died shortly after its completion, in 1949, and so was never able to hear it himself. Nederlands Blazers Ensemble presents the work with alto-mezzo Carina Vinke as Edith Piaf on the barstool in a smoky nightclub, in a new controversial arrangement by Willem van Merwijk.

Strauss’s Vier Letzte Lieder radiate an air of resignation. The composer bids farewell to life, and the world bids farewell to a musical language that had at that time become definitively ‘historic’. While Strauss wrote these songs, atonal music had long outgrown its infancy; in the second half of the twentieth century, music would take a radically different direction. NBE’s Artistic Director Bart Schneemann explains the work on the basis of the projected manuscript.

With free introduction at 7.30 pm in the INGzaal by members of the NBE.

credits
Composer: Richard Strauss
Editing: Willem van Merwijk
Dutch Wind Ensemble
Alt Mezzo: Carina Vinke

Source: PLT website