Saturday 12 December 2026

As a young man Richard Strauss, with a group of friends, took an expedition up a local mountain, lost their way and were caught in a storm and soaked on the way down. Strauss stored the adventure in memory and in 1899 started work to capture the whole experience in music. He put it to one side, unfinished, until the death of Gustav Mahler in 1910 prompted him to revisit his sketches and he completed the symphony in 1914. In the process he transformed his experience into a profound meditation on the place of man in nature.

The Britten Courtly Dances make an excellent concert suite. Britten’s opera Gloriana, from which they were taken, was not well received at its premiere, in June 1953, by an audience expecting a patriotic celebration of the new Elizabethan era. Only recently has it been recognised as exploring the relationship between love and duty, and responsibilities of power.