Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra

Andris Nelsons leads the Concertgebouworkest in Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss. Inspired by Nietzsche, Strauss translated topics like desire, joy, passion and death in music.

Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra

Almost everyone has heard Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra – or at least its opening section, entitled Sonnenaufgang (Dawn); the work’s impressive opening bars have been used in diverse ways ranging from television commercials to Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey and to Deep Purple and Elvis Presley. A sinuous succession of eight movements then follows, all named after various chapters of Nietzsche’s book Also sprach Zarathustra. Inspired by Nietzsche, Richard Strauss translated topics like desire, joy, passion and death in music.

Andris Nelsons, conductor

Andris Nelsons debuted with the Concertgebouworkest in 2008 and now conducts the orchestra regularly. Nelsons studied with Alexander Titov in St. Petersburg and took private lessons with Mariss Jansons. Having conducted the North West German Philharmonic, the Latvian National Opera and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons currently is music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig.

 

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