The composer

Not quite 40 when he conducted Symphonia Domestica’s first performance in New York, Richard Strauss was already famous. His four years at the Bavarian State Opera had been followed in 1898 by his appointment as principal conductor at the Berlin State Orchestra, where he would remain until 1913. As a composer, his string of tone poems, beginning with Don Juan in 1889, enjoyed the highest esteem. Though his first opera, Guntram, suffered a poor premiere in 1894, Salome, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier would soon make an altogether more significant mark.