# Death and Transfiguration

Death and Transfiguration (German: Tod und Verklärung), Op. 24, is a tone poem for orchestra by Richard Strauss. Strauss began composition in the late summer of 1888 and completed the work on 18 November 1889. The work is dedicated to the composer's friend Friedrich Rosch.
The music depicts the death of an artist. At Strauss's request, this was described in a poem by his friend Alexander Ritter as an interpretation of Death and Transfiguration, after it was composed. As the man lies dying, thoughts of his life pass through his head: his childhood innocence, the struggles of his manhood, the attainment of his worldly goals; and at the end, he receives the longed-for transfiguration "from the infinite reaches of heaven".

## Performance history

Strauss conducted the premiere on 21 June 1890 at the Eisenach Festival (on the same programme as the premiere of his Burleske in D minor for piano and orchestra). He also conducted this work for his first appearance in the United Kingdom, at the Wagner Concert with the Philharmonic Society on 15 June 1897 at the Queen's Hall in London.

## Critical reaction

English music critic Ernest Newman described this as music to which one would not want to die or awaken. "It is too spectacular, too brilliantly lit, too full of pageantry of a crowd; whereas this is a journey one must make very quietly, and alone."$^{:399}$
French critic Romain Rolland in his Musiciens d'aujourd'hui (1908) called the piece "one of the most moving works of Strauss, and that which is constructed with the noblest utility".

## Structure

There are four parts (with Ritter's poetic thoughts condensed):
* Largo (The sick man, near death)
* Allegro molto agitato (The battle between life and death offers no respite to the man)
* Meno mosso (The dying man's life passes before him)
* Moderato (The sought-after transfiguration)
A typical performance lasts about 25 minutes.

## Quoted

In one of his last compositions, "Im Abendrot" from the Four Last Songs, Strauss poignantly quotes the "transfiguration theme" from his tone poem of 60 years earlier, during and after the soprano's final line, "Ist dies etwa der Tod?" (Is this perhaps death?).
Just before his own death, he remarked that his music was absolutely correct, his feelings mirroring those of the artist depicted within; Strauss said to his daughter-in-law as he lay on his deathbed in 1949: "It's a funny thing, Alice, dying is just the way I composed it in Tod und Verklärung."

## Discography

| Conductor | Orchestra | Recorded |
| Richard Strauss | Staatskapelle Berlin | 1926 |
| Albert Coates | London Symphony Orchestra | 1928 |
| Leopold Stokowski | Philadelphia Orchestra | 1934 |
| Richard Strauss | Munich Radio Symphony Orchestra | 1937 |
| Victor de Sabata | Berlin Philharmonic | 1939 |
| Leopold Stokowski | All-American Youth Orchestra | 1941 |
| Willem Mengelberg | Concertgebouw Orchestra | 1942 |
| Arturo Toscanini | Philadelphia Orchestra | 1942 |
| Leopold Stokowski | New York City Symphony Orchestra | 1944 |
| Richard Strauss | Vienna Philharmonic | 1944 |
| Eugene Ormandy | Philadelphia Orchestra | 1945 |
| Fritz Reiner | RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra | 1950 |
| Arturo Toscanini | NBC Symphony Orchestra | 1952 |
| Wilhelm Furtwängler | Vienna Philharmonic | 1953 |
| Victor de Sabata | Vienna Philharmonic | 1953 |
| Herbert von Karajan | Philharmonia Orchestra | 2/3 June 1953 |
| Jascha Horenstein | Bamberg Symphony | 1954 |
| William Steinberg | Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra | 1954 |
| Karl Böhm | Concertgebouw Orchestra | 1955 |
| Hans Knappertsbusch | Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire | 7/8 May 1956 |
| Fritz Reiner | Vienna Philharmonic | 4/6 Sep 1956 |
| Artur Rodziński | Philharmonia Orchestra | 1957 |
| George Szell | Cleveland Orchestra | 1957 |
| Antal Doráti | Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra | 1958 |
| Eugene Ormandy | Philadelphia Orchestra | 1959 |
| Herbert von Karajan | Vienna Philharmonic | 1960 |
| Pierre Monteux | San Francisco Symphony | 23 Jan 1960 |
| Otto Klemperer | Philharmonia Orchestra | 1961 |
| Erich Leinsdorf | Los Angeles Philharmonic | 1961 |
| Zdeněk Košler | Prague Symphony Orchestra | 1967 |
| Jascha Horenstein | London Symphony Orchestra | 1970 |
| Rudolf Kempe | Staatskapelle Dresden | 1970 |
| Lorin Maazel | New Philharmonia Orchestra | 1971 |
| Herbert von Karajan | Berlin Philharmonic | 1972 |
| Eugene Ormandy | Philadelphia Orchestra | 1978 |
| Lorin Maazel | Cleveland Orchestra | 1979 |
| Antal Doráti | Detroit Symphony Orchestra | 1980 |
| Klaus Tennstedt | London Philharmonic Orchestra | 1982 |
| Claudio Abbado | London Symphony Orchestra | 1981 |
| Bernard Haitink | Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra | 1981 |
| Eduardo Mata | Dallas Symphony Orchestra | 1981 |
| Kazuyoshi Akiyama | Vancouver Symphony Orchestra | 1982 |
| Sergiu Celibidache | SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra | 1982 |
| Herbert von Karajan | Berlin Philharmonic | 1982 |
| Michael Gielen | Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra | 1984 |
| André Previn | Vienna Philharmonic | 1987 |
| Giuseppe Sinopoli | New York Philharmonic | 1987 |
| Christoph von Dohnányi | Vienna Philharmonic | 1989 |
| Neeme Järvi | Scottish National Orchestra | 1989 |
| Tolga Kashif | Philharmonia Orchestra | 1989 |
| Zdeněk Košler | Slovak Philharmonic | 1989 |
| Yondani Butt | London Symphony Orchestra | 1990 |
| Vladimir Ashkenazy | Cleveland Orchestra | 1990 |
| James Levine | Metropolitan Opera Orchestra | 1995 |
| Lorin Maazel | Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra | 1995 |
| Jesús López Cobos | Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra | 1997 |
| Kurt Masur | New York Philharmonic | 1998 |
| Vladimir Ashkenazy | Czech Philharmonic | 1999 |
| David Zinman | Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich | 2001 |
| Lorin Maazel | New York Philharmonic | 2005 |
| Donald Runnicles | Atlanta Symphony Orchestra | 2006 |
| Johannes Fritzsch | The Queensland Orchestra | 2008 |
| Manfred Honeck | Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra | 2013 |
| Mariss Jansons | Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra | 2014 |
| Kent Nagano | Göteborgs Symfoniker | 2016 |
| Robin Ticciati | Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin | 2020 |