Welcome to my CD collection. Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra is a one-piece tone-poem of nine individually titled passages: 1. Introduction [1'38] 2. Of the Backworldsmen [3'30] 3. Of the Great Longing [2'05] 4. Of Joys and Passions [2'21] 5. The Song of the Grave [2'48] 6. Of Science and Learning [4'34] 7. The Convalescent [5'29] 8. The Dance-Song [8'25] 9. Song of the Night Wanderer [4'55] Also Sprach Zarathustra is no portrait, but a musical response to Nietzsche’s philosophical rhapsody of that title which was published complete in 1892. In the tone-poem Strauss contrasts man and nature by reference to the adjacent, yet diatonically remote keys of B and C (major and minor). He completed the full score on 24 August 1896, and himself conducted the premiere at Frankfurt on 27 November of that year. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra lived for ten years in the mountains remote from his fellow-men. At length he decided that the wisdom which he had accrued deserved to be passed on to the world; so he descended again to preach his doctrine in some 80 discourses, most of them quite short. Their message can be summed up: “all gods are dead: let us now will the survival of the Superman”. Strauss selected eight of Nietzsche’s chapter-headings and worked them into his score. Although he soaked himself in Nietzsche’s work, and loved to argue for hours about Zarathustra’s teachings, his tone-poem does not attempt ot turn philosophy into music, but forms a symphonic structure out of such elements in the book as are susceptible to musical parallels. A prime example is Zarathustra’s address to the sun, before leaving his cave in the mountains for the world below. Strauss begins his work with a monumental sunrise for full orchestra in blazing C major topped by organ plein jeu. Almost at once the music grovels in the depths of B minor: here is man nourishing ignorance on the comforts of religion, in a sickly hymn-tune for richly divided strings and gentle organ support. Strauss brings it to a glowing climax, even though he, like Nietzsche, did not get on well with the Christian faith and its doctrine of meekness and suffering. This is the first of four musical episodes followed each time by a thematic development section. The episode headed “Of Joys and Passions” is a sumptuous, fiery long melody in C minor, voluptuously ornamented, Strauss at his most enthusiastic. Zarathustra preached self-abnegation, so the melody is interrupted at is height by a loudly disapproving theme. The episode “Of Science” is a highly erudite fugue in the bowels of the orchestra, on a theme which includes all `12 notes of the chromatic scale (long before Schoenberg’s first dodecaphonic attempts) and strongly contrasts C and B as nature vs. mankind. The ensuing development involves chains of dancing thirds, and the emergence of the Superman freed from the trammels of superstition, symbolized by the trumpet-call of cockcrow. In the episode headed “The Dance-Song”, the Superman performs the dance of divine grace: for Strauss (even though no relation) it had to be a Viennese waltz, and it brings forward a solo violin in bright C major. The conflicting keys of man and nature are prominent again in the last development, which leads to the tolling of the Midnight Bell and Zarathustra’s song “O Mensch, gib acht” (familiar from Mahler’s Third Symphony). In the coda Zarathustra returns to the mountains, and the work ends peacefully with B major and C in alternation. –William Mann This upload uses the highest MP3 bit rate of 320kbps.