Metamorphosen

This past Thursday night I had the pleasure of spending an evening at a free concert at the Kennedy Center. The Opera House Orchestra performed Puccini's I Chrisantemi, then Samuel Barber's arrangement of the poem Dover Beach (words sung by a baritone with a pure, full voice), then Ernest Chausson's Chanson Perpetuelle (sung by a mezzo soprano who was wonderful but I admit I had to close my eyes because her facial expressions were sort of disracting), and lastly, Strauss' Metamporphosen. Strauss wrote this last one after the Munich opera house was bombed during WWII, and in the last eight bars of the piece, if you listen for it in the cello section, you'll hear an homage to Beethoven's 3rd Symphony. Another thing that makes the piece so interesting is that the entire piece is made up of sectional solos. It's a long one, so I could only find it on YouTube split into sections, but I share it with you all here because it reminded me that, regardless of time or inclinations or place, really excellent classical music fills my soul in a way that no other music can.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

(Sorry that I'm not technologically savvy enough to embed the videos, but it's worth the trouble, I promise.)