Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra

We are welcoming the Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra, which will be presenting a Strauss programme this time around! The orchestra is led by the young British conductor Alexander Soddy, who has worked extensively in Germany, including at the Hamburg State Opera.

Till Eulenspiegel is a tone poem composed by Strauss in the late nineteenth century which tells the story of the German folk hero Till Eulenspiegel: a prankster and bluffer whose misadventures are retold with the help of two themes. Through the music, we follow Eulenspiegel as he jokes with the clergy and scholars, and flirts with girls. Not even a death sentence can stop him and his trickery. The horn carries one of the themes through a crooning melody, while the cunning and ingratiating clarinet carries the other.

Four Last Songs for Soprano and Orchestra was composed at the end of Strauss’ life and serves as a finale to his extensive body of work. Long melody lines and extremely subtle colour shifts through rich harmonics give this music tremendous lustre. The soloist in the challenging soprano part is Swedish Agneta Eichenholz, who has had major successes on opera stages worldwide. She guest-performed at Konserthuset most recently in 2014, as the soloist in Anders Hillborg’s the Strand Settings.

An Alpine Symphony was completed in 1915, but Strauss had been working on the piece for many years. His workplace when he completed the symphony was rather extraordinary – a villa with views of the alpine peaks that meant so much to him throughout his life. The piece could be said to be autobiographical, as Strauss was passionate about the nature which the symphony illustrates so beautifully.