“Richard I is Wagner, there is no Richard II, therefore Strauss is Richard III.” This witty quip originates with Hans von Bülow, who certainly must have known what he was talking about, as he remained Wagner’s devoted admirer until the end of his life (even after the composer seduced away his wife, Cosima) and mentored the young Strauss early in his career.

Accordingly, this concert juxtaposes works by Richards I and III, with the first part featuring, for example, the most famous excerpt from Tristan und Isolde, which exerted an extraordinary impact on the Western music of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the elderly Strauss’s poignantly beautiful swan song, Vier letzte Lieder, composed to poems of Hermann Hesse and Joseph von Eichendorff – with both concert numbers featuring the outstanding soprano Katalin Szutrély, who is revered for her pivotal work primarily in the area of historically informed performance.

“It’s a strange thing, but dying is just the way I composed it in Tod und Verklärung,” observed Strauss in the last days of his life, and in the second half of the concert, this symphonic poem will correspond to Wagner’s most intense depiction of heroic death and the lamentation that bids farewell to the hero.