Listen: “Eine Alpensinfonie”
For Dreaming of: A flight over the Alps
Symphony
We reached out to the former Executive Director of NYC Opera House Teatro Nuovo - Philip Pierce - for his recommendation on the perfect cozy, holiday melody. His pick:
The 110 year old, 50 minute long “Eine Alpensinfonie” by German composer Richard Strauss.
According to Pierce, it takes 125 players to perform this piece, and is a dream for traveling to the European Alps over the holidays.
“It’s divided into 22 different sections and it essentially depicts a day in the Alps from nighttime just before dawn all the way through sunset and the return of night. It is all at once enormous as some of the sections make you feel as if you are flying over these Alpine peaks. But then it also has moments of such quiet intimacy that you feel yourself enveloped in the music like a cozy blanket. I love that from the beginning you hear how jagged those peaks are, and then they gleam like razor blades in the sunrise.”
Pierce’s favorite performance of the composition is by Giuseppe Sinopoli and the Staatskapelle Dresden.
Photo Source: Spotify
Syllogi’s ‘Musings’ is a series helping you paint a picture of a destination while traveling from your living room. From relevant books and articles, inspiring movies and tv shows, to songs and even treats and dishes, our goal is to curate a sensory experience that will prepare you for an upcoming trip, reminiscence on adventures past, or simply to envision a place that exists in your bucket list fantasies.
