PROGRAMME
RICHARD STRAUSS: Also sprach Zarathustra op. 30; Tod und Verklärung op. 24; Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche op. 28
- Conductor Riccardo Chailly
ABOUT THIS CONCERT
Broadcast Date:
Live Broadcast on SRF2 Kultur
Livestream of selected works on the Lucerne Festival Facebook page
Public Viewing on Inseli
In August, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra returns – as it does every year – to its summer residency in Lucerne. This tradition goes back to 2003, when Claudio Abbado (1933-2014) invited the MCO to form the core of his newly-founded Lucerne Festival Orchestra. This year, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra can be heard in a total of five concerts: in addition to four performances as part of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, it will also be featured in one MCO concert. In one way or the other, all performances closely relate to the 2017 festival theme, “identity”.
This year, all four Lucerne Festival Orchestra concerts are conducted by Music Director Riccardo Chailly. The opening concerts are dedicated to three tone poems of Richard Strauss, each of which illustrates characters with strong and individual personalities: Also sprach Zarathustra, inspired by the work of Friedrich Nietzsche of the same name; Tod und Verklärung, portraying an artist’s death; and Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, chronicling the life of prankster Till Eulenspiegel.
The Lucerne Festival, set on idyllic Lake Lucerne in central Switzerland, is one of the world’s most renowned classical music festivals and a meeting place for leading performers from all over the globe. Even as it has begun to extend outward from the lake to fill the city, the Kongress and Kulturzentrum Luzern (KKL), Jean Nouvel’s concert hall famous for its exquisite acoustics and architecture, remains the heart of festival.
This concert is dedicated to the co-founder of the Lucerne Festival, Arturo Toscanini, on the occasion of his 150th birthday.