NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Marek Janowski

»Oh God, how scared am I of death, I break out in a cold sweat,« exclaimed Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s »Everyman«. The boundary between life and death has always fascinated artists. Richard Strauss wrote a piece about illness and death in his mid-twenties when he still enjoyed the full vitality of youth: in »Tod und Verklärung« (Death and Transfiguration), the music groans onomatopoetically and the pulse falters. Strauss’s collaboration with his congenial partner Hugo von Hofmannsthal is also an extreme fluctuation between tragedy and optimism. Marek Janowski, who recently shone with Wagner interpretations with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, then includes a contrast in the programme with »Der Bürger als Edelmann« (The Bourgeois Gentleman), which is based on a nimble-footed Molière comedy. Death always needs life as a projection surface – and vice versa!