Richard Strauss

On June 17, the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory hosted a festive concert marking the 160th anniversary of the birth of the renowned German composer Richard Strauss. The State Kremlin Orchestra, conducted by one of the most talented young Russian conductors, Konstantin Chudovsky, performed works by the great composer from a variety of genres. The program included the Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra in D major (soloist — Maria Surnacheva), the Waltz from the opera Der Rosenkavalier, Burleske for Piano and Orchestra, as well as the tone poem Ein Heldenleben (violin solo — Konstantin Kaznacheev). The majestic, deeply emotional and expressive music of late Romanticism, remarkable for its extraordinary energy and exquisite poetic sensibility, left no one indifferent.

Richard Strauss was an undisputed genius and daring innovator who had a profound influence on the development of European music in the 20th century. He explored new musical and dramatic forms and created unique musical images. Obsessed with music, he produced masterpiece after masterpiece, inspiring audiences with his rich harmonic language, distinctive melodies and dazzling orchestration. His music contains everything: Mozartian lightness and Wagnerian grandeur, provocation and stubborn adherence to tradition, creative humility and destructive fury. “I have never been a revolutionary; the only revolutionary of our time was Strauss,” Arnold Schoenberg once said of him, emphasizing the innovative nature of the composer’s work.