Season Finale: Four Last Songs

Friday, June 18 – Saturday, June 19 at the Bradley Symphony Center, 212 W. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee
Start Time
  • 7:30p on Friday, June 18
  • 7:30p on Saturday, June 19
conductor

David Robertson

R. Strauss

Serenade

R. Strauss

Death and Transfiguration

R. Strauss

Metamorphosen

R. Strauss

Four Last Songs

CONCERT DETAILS

Often considered Richard Strauss’s most profound music, his Four Last Songs — all based on poems — are a parting gift to Strauss’s wife…and to the world. Artistic Partner David Robertson leads his sumptuous all-Strauss program, which comprises more of the composer’s most beloved music: his lyrical serenade for wind instruments; his tone poem of heavenly redemption, Death and Transfiguration; and his funereal elegy for 23 strings, Metamorphosen.

How you’ll feel: profoundly moved, poetically inspired, eager for a new season to begin

What to listen for:

  • The “four last songs” Strauss references are poems by Hermann Hesse, titled “Spring,” “September,” “Upon Going to Sleep,” and “At Sunset.” The German-language lyrics translate to romantic sentiments such as “In dusk-dim vaults / I’ve long dreamed / of your trees and blue skies…” and “The garden mourns, / the cooling rain falls upon the flowers.”
  • You’ll especially want to hear these songs performed by Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, a South African operatic soprano whose star is on the rise.

Support

Start Time
  • 7:30p on Friday, June 18
  • 7:30p on Saturday, June 19
conductor

David Robertson

R. Strauss

Serenade

R. Strauss

Death and Transfiguration

R. Strauss

Metamorphosen

R. Strauss

Four Last Songs