Death and Transfiguration

Strauss began the tone poem Tod und Verklärung in the late summer of 1888 and finished it on 18 November 1889; it is dedicated to his friend Friedrich Rösch. He conducted the premiere at the Eisenach festival on 21 June 1890. The programme poem printed at the head of the score came afterwards — Alexander Ritter wrote verses in four sections to fit music already composed. Strauss insisted the subject was invention rather than experience, and that what he wanted after Macbeth and Don Juan was a piece beginning in C minor and ending in C major.