Richard Strauss: The Last Romantic?

Richard Strauss was perhaps the last of the great Romantic composers. Although he frequently touched on the borders of atonality, his music only occassionally crosses the line—to aching poignant effect. In his operas and symphonic poems, Strauss' strikingly modern inspirations—love, loss, madness, revenge, passion, and the hereafter—and lavish tonal language were always firmly grounded in the basic traditions of 19th-century music. From Der Rosenkavalier to the Four Last Songs, enjoy this survey of the lush, soaring orchestral and vocal landscapes of the last Romantic master.