BBC NOW - Strauss & Wagner

PASSION · FAREWELL · LUMINOUS Antony Hermus – Conductor Katharine Dain – Soprano Strauss VIER LETZTE LIEDER (Four Last Songs) Interval Wagner arr. | trefn. Henk de Vlieger Tristan und Isolde: An Orchestral Passion Strauss & Wagner: two towering figures at the height of their expressive powers. Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, composed in 1948, a year before his death, stand as one of the most luminous farewells in all music. Setting deeply contemplative texts, Strauss reflects on love, transience and release, drawing the listener into what he called “the magic circle of the night.” After the interval, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde: An Orchestral Passion reveals the composer at his most revolutionary. This sumptuous orchestral synthesis has long been cherished as a concert work in its own right, its lush romantic surface concealing a daring harmonic language that transformed music history