Today's performance

Well this is not a daily thing, it seems. Nonetheless, today's item to listen to is "Der Rosenkavalier", a very popular comic opera based on a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and composed by Richard Strauss in 1911.

Also, this performance features Kiri Te Kanawa as Marschallin.

The Rest is Noise

I have begun reading Alex Ross's "The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century", about which it is written:

'“The Rest Is Noise” is a work of immense scope and ambition. The idea is not simply to conduct a survey of 20th-century classical composition but to come up with a history of that century as refracted through its music.'

Now, although Alex Ross has added pages of sound files to accompany the text (here), I'd like to do it myself. Every day (hopefully), I will add a piece that is mentioned in the text, in linear order of course, and try to add what Alex Ross wrote.

Today we'll start with Salome, by Richard Strauss, which opens the first chapter of the book.

Update: Salome Leitmotif - 

...which becomes

...towards the end.