Santtu conducts a Strauss extravaganza

The Philharmonia’s 80th birthday celebrations reach their grand finale – a recreation of a 1947 concert originally conducted by Richard Strauss himself.  

Strauss was 83, and the Philharmonia just two years old, when he conducted the orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in a concert of his own works. Santtu, an acclaimed interpreter of Strauss’s music, now steps into his formidable shoes to recreate that extraordinary occasion.  

Don Juan gets the concert off to a swashbuckling start. A gorgeous oboe solo paints a sensuous love scene, before heroic horns herald the libertine’s final duel.   

Next, top British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor brings his understated brilliance to Strauss’s Burleske. Strauss wrote this delightful work when he was just 21 – perhaps a sense of nostalgia led him to programme it again in his final concert.  

The autobiographical Symphonia Domestica is a portrayal of Strauss’s home life with his wife and young child. It’s full of fun and affection (and the occasional squabble), but anything but domestic in scale, calling for an orchestra of around 100 players. Its New York premiere was such a triumph that an entire floor of a Manhattan department store was cleared for two more performances, to a 6000-strong audience.  

Bringing the Philharmonia’s season to a graceful close is a set of waltzes from the opera Der Rosenkavalier– a delectable dessert for this 80th birthday feast.