Strauss, Richard - Eine Alpensinfonie - Haitink, Bernard (conductor)

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In his Alpine Symphony Strauss recounts an attempt to conquer the summit of an Alpine mountain. He infuses the score with numerous instrumental colours and rich combinations of sounds, evoking the images and events that take place on the trek. It was to be one of his final large-scale orchestral works and shows the last great German Romantic composer at the pinnacle of his art.

CD Reviews
'Mastery is the word. This depiction of a mountain climb achieves the peak of orchestral expertise... it has immense grandeur.'
The Times, UK

Concert reviews:
'an outstanding performance of Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony. Rarely has the long haul to the summit seemed more purposeful. Haitink's perfect control of the orchestral palette at sunrise and at dusk, as strands of colour rose out of and sank back into the dark monochrome contours, made this performance an incarnation of the music's own metaphysical struggle and triumph'
The Times (UK)

'He avoided the fashionable temptation to treat the vast score as an exercise in postmodern irony and presented it straightforwardly as a piece of tremendous late Romanticism'
The Guardian (UK)