Strauss: Zarathustra im Wiener Musikverein

About the Event

Who doesn't know the monumental C major fanfare with which Richard Strauss begins his tone poem “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”? It seems to catapult you straight out of the concert hall and into space, as suggested by its use as film music in Stanley Kubrick's “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Yet it is only the beginning of a gripping work loosely based on Friedrich Nietzsche, in which Gregorian chants, natural sounds, waltzes, and archaic symbols create a fascinating musical pandemonium. Jun Märkl needs no introduction to the audience he has been one of the most popular guests at the Tonkünstler podium since 2010. This time, he and the orchestra paint a portrait of Richard Strauss in a triptych of works. The large, multifaceted tone poem with philosophical references is accompanied by an absolutely musical argument: Strauss' Burlesque is a brilliant, highly virtuosic piece in which the piano enters into ever‐changing dialogues with the orchestra and, not least, with the solo timpani – a wonderful debut piece for Ukrainian pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk. With the dance suite after François Couperin, Jun Märkl also presents Strauss as a tongue‐in‐cheek classicist: pure pleasure.

Wiener Musikverein

The Wiener Musikverein is one of the world's great concert halls. The home of the Vienna Philarmonic Orchestra and the centre of Viennese musical life, the building was opened in 1870 as a part of an ambitious plan to create an elegant cultural boulevard along the Ringstrasse. Designed in the Neo‐Classical style to resemble an Ancient Greek temple, the Great Hall of the Musikverein is deemed to be one of the best music halls in the world thanks to its impeccable acoustics.
In 2004 four new halls were added to the building. The Austrian architect Wilhelm Holzbauer recognised the aesthetic importance of the existing building and sought out ways to echo the style in a modern language of form. Each of the four New Halls focuses on a different material — glass, metal, stone, and wood.