Strauss: Zarathustra

Does anyone not know it, the monumental C major fanfare with which Richard Strauss opens his tone poem «Also sprach Zarathustra»? It seems to catapult you straight out of the concert hall into space, as its use as the score to Stanley Kubrick’s «2001: A Space Odyssey» confirms. And yet it’s just the beginning of a compelling piece loosely based on the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, in which Gregorian chant, nature sounds, waltz music and archaic symbols produce a fascinating musical pandemonium. The time has long passed when Jun Märkl needed to be introduced to audiences – since 2010 he has been one of the most popular guests on the Tonkunstler podium. This time he and the orchestra put together a triptych of works that together form a portrait of Richard Strauss. The great polymorphous tone poem on a philosophical theme is joined by an argumentation in absolute-musical form: Strauss’s Burleske is a brilliant, highly virtuosic piece in which the piano enters into ever-new dialogue with the orchestra and not least with the triumphantly soloistic timpani – a wonderful debut work for the Ukrainian pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk. And Jun Märkl also presents Strauss as tongue-in-cheek classicist with the Dance Suite after François Couperin:  pure pleasure.