– Composer: Richard Georg Strauss (11 June 1864 — 8 September 1949)
– Orchestra: Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich
– Conductor: David Zinman
– Year of recording: 2001
Tod und Verklärung Death and Transfiguration, tone poem for orchestra, Op. 24 (TrV 158), written in 1888-1889.
There are four movements (with Ritter’s poetic thoughts condensed):
00:00 – I. Largo (The sick man, near death)
05:19 – II. Allegro molto agitato (The battle between life and death offers no respite to the man)
08:55 – III. Meno mosso (The dying man’s life passes before him)
16:53 – IV. Moderato (The sought-after transfiguration)
Among Strauss’ tone poems, Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration) stands out for its concise program of an unnamed artist’s demise and the subsequent transformation of his spirit. Unlike Ein Heldenleben, which contained an autobiographical element, Tod und Verklärung is more universal in its expression of dying. Here Strauss does not present a triumphant narrative of individual accomplishment, but rather explores the fleeting images of past experience as they dissolve before a dying person’s eyes: As the man lies dying, thoughts of his life pass through his head: his childhood innocence, the struggles of his manhood, the attainment of his worldly goals; and at the end, he receives the longed-for transfiguration “from the infinite reaches of heaven”.
Composed in 1888-1889, just after Don Juan, Tod und Verklärung departs from the kind of tone poem Strauss had written up to that time. Instead of using a literary source as the basis, he imagined his own scenario. In fact the verses by his friend Alexander Ritter appended to the score are an afterthought Strauss added after he had completed the work. He is reputed to have said, just before his own death, that dying was just as he had depicted it in Tod und Verklärung.
Strauss cast the work in the form of an extended sonata form, with a structure freer than he had yet attempted in his tone poems. Several evocative motives occur at the outset, including one suggesting an irregular heartbeat that is critical to the denouement of the work. Strauss uses various other motives to depict the protagonist’s respiration and suffering; he also presents, early on, a short contrasting idea, depicting an ideal state, that re-emerges the extraordinarily lovely portrayal of transfiguration later in the work. Given the relatively unspecific nature of the program, this tone poem has an open-ended quality that involves the listener in the work. The vast and varied orchestration is typical of the mature Strauss. The moment of transfiguration is brilliant: a C major chord builds from the basses up over a powerful tread that includes deep bells and gongs.
The work is dedicated: “Meinem lieben Freunde Friedrich Rösch zugeeignet”.