RICHARD STRAUSS FESTLICHES PRäLUDIUM Op.61 FOR LARGE ORCHESTRA & ORGAN BPhO CHRISTIAN THIELEMANN dir. LIVE

This work is a contemporary of the Alpensinfonie, with which it has more than a passing resemblance. Strauss had already written his main orchestral works by 1913 when he was asked to write a piece for the opening of the Wiener Konzerthaus. This circumstance suggests a parallel with Beethoven's Consecration of the House, written for the opening of a theatre, at a date when he had written all his symphonies. If Beethoven came up with a Handelian overture, Strauss wrote a solemn work, based on hymn-like tunes, celebratory fanfares and majestic organ chords, in all their diatonic grandeur. The piece opens with a thoroughly Straussian succession of organ chords, immediately followed by a brass fanfare. The reply of the strings has somewhat of an Elgarian pensiveness. Mutual replies between this motive and the opening chord succession subside in preparation for the main theme, which is as diatonic as it possibly could: An ascending fourth, a broken major triad and the first five notes of an ascending scale. This theme is developed into a climax that sounds like a passage of the Alpensinfonie, and then another which calls for the whole power of the brass. The final section, based on the main theme with a timpani repeating the interval of a fourth reminds of the coda of Mahler's Sixth Symphony, after which the organ closes with a reprise of the opening page.