Vier Letzte Lieder
Strauss’ Swan Song
In the last six months of World War II, Richard Strauss wrote one more important orchestral work: the melancholy Metamorphoses, a study for 23 solo strings. Calling it a “study” was an understatement: it is one of his most consummate compositions. It is generally seen as an elegiac lament on the devastation that the war in Germany had caused and was still causing at the time of the composition. One of the themes of the piece quotes precisely the death march from Beethoven’s third symphony, the Eroica. A few years later, the eighty-four-year-old Strauss wrote perhaps his most beloved composition, the Vier Letzte Lieder, literally his last songs and thus his swan song. He never got to hear them live: he died shortly after their completion in 1949. The songs radiate an atmosphere of leave-taking and resignation. The composer farewells life, and the world farewells a genre and a musical language that had definitively become “historical”. When Strauss was writing these pieces, atonal music was long out of its infancy, and in the second half of the twentieth century music would take a radically different direction. Artistic director Bart Schneemann will explain the works with the help of projected manuscripts. Both works are in outstanding new NBE arrangements.
COMPOSITION: VIER LETZTE LIEDER, METAMORPHOSEN, RICHARD STRAUSS
ARRANGEMENT: WILLEM VAN MERWIJK
when to see it
-
Thu 16 Apr 2020
20:30
Amsterdam
Podium Mozaïek
Tickets
try-out
- Fri 17 Apr 2020 20:00 Arnhem Musis Tickets
- Sat 18 Apr 2020 20:15 Den Haag Nieuwe Kerk Tickets
- Sun 19 Apr 2020 20:15 Amsterdam Het Concertgebouw
- Tue 21 Apr 2020 20:30 Tilburg Theaters Tilburg Tickets
- Wed 22 Apr 2020 20:00 Muiden Grote Kerk Tickets
- Thu 23 Apr 2020 20:00 Enschede Grote Kerk Tickets
- Sun 26 Apr 2020 16:00 Utrecht TivoliVredenburg Tickets
- Sat 25 Apr 2020 20:15 Amsterdam Het Concertgebouw
- Tue 28 Apr 2020 20:30 Leeuwarden de Harmonie Tickets
- Wed 29 Apr 2020 20:15 Meppel Schouwburg Ogterop Tickets
- Thu 30 Apr 2020 20:15 Wageningen Junushoff Tickets
New Year’s Concert 2024
The Nederlands Wind Ensemble’s New Year’s concerts are as inseparable from New Year’s Day as ski jumping and the Viennese waltz. A surprising musical celebration,.
Read more 31-12-2023 t/m 01-01-2024Shostakovich+
Dmitri Shostakovich’s 8th string quartet is one of artistic director Bart Schneemann’s great passions. In Shostakovich+ the NBE plays this undisputed masterpiece. Bart tells the.
Read more 25-01-2024 t/m 08-02-2024Genesis (De Schepping) with Bart Moeyaert
BART MOEYAERT AUTHOR, NARRATOR Genesis (De Schepping) is the first installment of the succesful musical trilogy created by the Netherlands Wind Ensemble based on three of.
Read more 21-02-2024 t/m 28-02-2024American Roots
The NBE dives deep into the heart of American music. Together with Native American singer Pura Fé, musical phenomenon and descendant of the Tuscarora tribe,.
Read more 06-03-2024 t/m 10-03-2024St Matthew Passion
As Bach’s St Matthew Passion resounds throughout the Netherlands in April, the NBE also makes a tradition of his much-praised and unique adaptation from 2022..
Read more 26-03-2024 t/m 29-03-2024The Devil’s Advocate (De Duivelskunstenaar)
After ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘Charlie Chaplin’, the NBE presents the gripping, iconic silent film FAUST (1926) as a film of our time. The story.
Read more 18-04-2024 t/m 02-05-2024