Richard Strauss wrote music that described things – people, ideas, stories – from Till Eulenspiegel the merry prankster to Salome the seductive dancer to the awesome sunrise of Also Spake Zarathrustra. And right outside the windows of his villa in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (pictured above), the composer could take in a view of one of the most magnificent vistas in the world, the Bavarian Alps. Strauss took a number of swings at creating the music to match the majesty of the mountains, and finally got what he wished in 1915 in An Alpine Symphony.
It’s a big and atmospheric piece of music that calls for an augmented orchestra, and Louisville Orchestra music director Teddy Abrams has added a number of players and special instruments for concerts Friday and Saturday in Whitney Hall. The additions include a raft of brass, eight extra French horn players, a “thundersheet” and a wind machine to describe one 13-hour day up an Alpine mountain and back down again. A lot can happen.
Also on the bill, touring soloist Midori performs the Sibelius violin concerto.
“Strauss had been contemplating an Alpine piece for a long time, and after the death of his friend Gustav Mahler (in 1911), he found the motivation to finish it,” says Louisville Orchestra principal horn Jon Gustely, who has performed the Alpine Symphony previously with St. Louis Symphony and Mexico City Philharmonic. On stage for this weekend’s concerts Gustely will be joined by the Louisville Orchestra’s regular horn section, with the additional hornists offstage with the Wagner tubas. The offstage players will be stationed in the balconies and in the hallways alongside the seating area. The effect could be kind of like surround sound in the high mountain range.
But it isn’t simply to make the sound louder, it’s to create an instrumentation that encompasses more voices for more musical storytelling, says Gustely.
“I love the chorale theme at the beginning. It starts very softly as sort of a chorale of low brass and low winds. And then it gets typically Strauss, very active, developing a lot of very athletic passages.”
And, of course, ascending a mountain, even on established hiking paths, is a very athletic thing to do – sharing the going with goats and traversing steep passages. But the star of the story is the mountain, itself, rising from a verdant valley floor, with vegetation changing, temperature changing. The mountain creating its own weather.
“It’s supposed to represent nature in the Alps,” Gustely explains. “Strauss had a home in Bavaria, looking at the outdoor scenes. That’s with all the horn calls and hunting calls, and then it ends. To me, the best part, the last five minutes the chorale comes back and it’s a very slow and drawn-out sort of farewell. It’s quite beautiful.”
Wagner tubas?
If French horns take a starring role in An Alpine Symphony, that’s no surprise. Richard Strauss (no relation to the Strauss waltz family of Vienna) lifted the horn to the front of his music, taking advantage of the addition of valves to the ancient instrument. That opened the horn to intricate melodies. And he was born in Munich, the son of Franz Strauss, regarded as Europe’s finest French horn player. The son grew up in a late nineteenth century musical world of Romantic composers, centered in a small region around the Alps: Brahms and Mahler in Vienna, Richard Wagner in Dresden, etc. Strauss was a handsome man, married to the tempestuous German soprano Pauline de Ahna. They were all musical stars of the period. (Although the elder Strauss detested Wagner’s music – and didn’t mind saying so!)
So, just a note on the Wagner tubas. The Louisville Orchestra has borrowed eight of them from the Cincinnati Symphony. They do look a little like a tuba, or a marching band baritone, in that they’re held in front of the player, with the bell projecting upward. But Wagner invented them for French horn players, with the valves placed for left-handed fingering. They’re specifically scored in Wagner’s “Ring” cycle of operas. (Something for the Valkeries to ride above?)
In the clear air of the high Alps, the horns would be heard across a great gorge, and echo in return.
Here's LO musician Scott Leger playing an excerpt of a Bruckner symphony with Wagner tubas:
Midori plays Sibelius
All that’s after intermission. The concert opening belongs to the international touring star Midori, playing Jean Sibelius’ Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. The Japanese-born American performs under just her first name and has earned an elite musical rank as a violinist and humanitarian. A fan favorite with a devoted following.
Midori’s appearance with the Louisville Orchestra comes amid a winter tour that includes concerts in Boston, San Francisco, Berlin, Poland, Turkey, India, Sri Lanka, and Korea. She’s performing the Sibelius concerto she’s playing in Louisville on a tour in Spain. Midori is also helping create “Hope concerts” in Japan for Noto Peninsula earthquake victims with pianist Mao Fujita, and an event with young string players in Nepal. Her recording project for 2025 is works by Robert Schumann. Notably, Midori’s instrument is the 1734 Guarneri del Gesu, “Ex-Huberman.”
Jean Sibelius isn’t just Finland’s most famous composer, he’s a hero in that nation – and the composer of the stirring anthem Finlandia. His symphonies are probably most familiar to audiences, especially Symphony No. 2, but smaller-size works are always popping up on concert programs and radio. “Hey, that’s neat!”
Sibelius certainly has a sound. He comes along as one of the final Romantic composers, like Richard Strauss, writing from the 19th Century into the 20th.
Sibelius totally ignored the atonal stuff of the period, taking a pass on sour notes, strange constructions and slashing assaults on the sensibilities of audiences. Yet, there is, in Sibelius and in this concerto, a northern austereness that listeners will recognize. More red-varnished wood than gold gilt. A Nordic edge, perhaps, distinguishing Sibelius from his Romantic siblings in Bavaria and Austria. But ever Romantic.
Correction: an earlier version of this story stated that this was Midori's first appearance in Louisville.
