Symphonic Lunch II: CENTENARY CONCERT. ERSO 100 festival

Programme

Richard Strauss
Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30

The concert is part of the celebratory programme of the ERSO 100 festival!

Maestro Olari Elts has chosen Richard Strauss’s masterpiece for this lunch concert: the philosophical tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra), inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s novel of the same name. Strauss took on the ambitious task of setting Nietzsche’s complex concept of human evolution to music. Rather than retelling Nietzsche’s work, Strauss’s piece conveys its spiritual atmosphere. The opening, a sunrise in the mountains seen through the eyes of an ancient prophet, has been used in countless performances, commercials, and films, including Stanley Kubrick’s legendary 2001: A Space Odyssey.