Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons has made quite a rapid ascent in his career. Still in his thirties, he has recently become the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and is the music director-designate of the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig. He has conducted Wagner at Bayreuth and from 2007 till this year, been the music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in England. Time to take a breather and look at the view from such lofty heights.
That's what you can do musically-speaking on the next Symphony @ 7 when I'll have a performance of Richard Strauss's largest tone poem, An Alpine Symphony, with Nelsons conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony.
Strauss's musical day-long journey up and down an Alpine mountain, from 1915, is represented in a work scored for a large orchestra and comprises 22 titled sections beginning and ending with Night. In between, there's a vividly-described trek that includes witnessing a glorious sunrise, ascent, various sights along the way, some dangerous moments on a glacier, a magnificent vision on the summit, a storm, descent, sunset, and ending as it began, in night.
Andris Nelsons makes a more than adequate mountain guide for this musical excursion, so join me Thursday evening at 7 for Symphony @ 7 on Classical 101.
