An Alpine Symphony, Op. 64

An Alpine Symphony, Op. 64, symphonic poem by German composer Richard Strauss that musically re-creates a day’s mountain climb in the Bavarian Alps. It premiered on October 28, 1915.

At the time he composed this piece, Strauss was living in the southern Bavarian town of Garmisch (now Garmisch-Partenkirchen), at the foot of Germany’s highest peak, the Zugspitze. As a young teenager, he and a group of friends had set out before dawn to climb a mountain, reached the summit five hours later, and been driven back down the mountain by a tremendous thunderstorm. Strauss recounted the experience in a letter, noting that, once he was near a piano, he had improvised a musical version of the experience. For his mature work, Strauss designated an ensemble of well more than 100 performers, including an abundance of brass and percussion, as well as such instruments as organ, wind machine, celesta, and two sets of timpani.

Although Strauss called his work a symphony, it bears none of the characteristics of that form. Instead of the standard four movements, An Alpine Symphony is written in one uninterrupted flow of music (roughly 45 minutes in performance length), portraying distinct episodes on the climb. It begins in the hours before sunrise, which are painted in dark and sombre tones. After the brassy emergence of the Sun, the climbers set forth to a rhythmic, rising theme; phrases of this theme recur throughout the work. Horns and clarinets, perhaps representing hunters and birds, carry them into the forest, where they pass by a brook and a waterfall. The mists rising from that cascade conjure up images of Alpine fairies. Leaving the forest, the climbers ascend to a sunny flower-filled Alpine meadow and then to a mountain pasture, where shepherds call to one another. The clangor of cowbells is heard.

The adventure takes an ominous turn when the climbers become lost in a thicket and then must traverse a glacier and a perilous precipice before they reach the summit. Here a grand trombone fanfare and rich orchestral passages create the effect of a glorious panorama revealed. But clouds cover the Sun, and darkness and turmoil prevail as a tremendous thunderstorm breaks overhead.

The adventurers scramble down the mountain, their descent represented by falling intervals, an inversion of the rising theme heard during the ascent. Each of the previous sights—the glacier, the pasture, the waterfall—passes by in reverse order as the climbers hasten down the slopes. By the time they arrive at the mountain’s base, the Sun is setting. The storm has passed, night has come, and they are enfolded in the darkness. Musically and dramatically, Strauss brings the listener full circle.