On Mothers’ Day 2017, Concertmaster Richard Altenbach and the Auburn Symphony presented Richard Strauss‘s monumental An Alpine Symphony at the Mondavi Center, Davis CA, one of Northern California’s greatest concert halls.  I use the term “monumental” quite intentionally.  The term in the obvious sense well connotes the shear scale of technical difficulty as well as the gigantic instrumental forces required (125-piece orchestra including heckelphone, organ, wind-machine and a “Samuel’s Aerophon” – some kind of monstrous perpetual pre-circular breathing flute!)  The “-mental” in the adjective “monumental” could also apply to the fact that Strauss had originally entitled the opus “Der Antichrist “.  But that discussion is for another BlogSpot…

When young, Strauss had experienced an Alpine adventure similar to the one described in his An Alpine Symphony: he and a group of climbers lost their way heading up a mountain and were caught in a storm and soaked on the way down.

Solos for the Concertmaster are alternately gratifyingly beautiful and downright horrifying…