R. Strauss: Sextet (from Capriccio) (with score)

This performance is by the Quatuor Ebène with Arnaud Thorette as a guest on viola, and Felix Drake on cello.
(Program notes courtesy of Vancouver Recital Society)
Capriccio (1942), Richard Strauss’ last stage work, is an opera about opera, constructed as a series of elegant salon conversations dealing with a question that has bedevilled opera lovers for centuries: which is more important, the words or the music?
The opera begins with a lusciously scored string sextet that functions both as a prelude to the action and as the first topic of conversation in the on-stage drama. This is because halfway through, as the curtain rises and the stage lights up, it is revealed that the six string players are in fact performing a new work written by the Countess’ composer-suitor especially for her, in front of her, in the elegant Rococo drawing room that is the set for the first scene in the opera.

[@sternernickwill]

Strauss’ own rendition of Siegfried Idyll. - With counterpoint and color handled so masterfully, I think the answer is clear that music says things words simply cannot.

[@francoziliani7631]

Un vrai chef d'oeuvre ce sextet

[@maxreger91]

Excellent!

[@Christian-tw7me]

A Woman without Shadow?

[@evanmcguire5787]

8:33

[@Christian-tw7me]

Is this not after a Opera of Strauß?

[@evandanger547]

It’s the opening scene from his opera Capriccio

[@Christian-tw7me]

@@evandanger547 thx 👍