Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Superman

The last disc I bought was back in November last year - Richard Strauss's, Also Sprach Zarathustra, recorded by the incomparable Berlin Philharmonic with Von Karajan (DG 447 441-2).  It's an extraordinary mix of Apollo mission fanfare and grand Wagnerian romanticism.  You have to be in the right mood, but if you are, with the volume turned up and the wind howling outside, it's fantastic.

Strauss was inspired by Nietzsche's novel of the same name.  Nietzsche wrote about the superman - the highest human specimen and the ultimate goal of humanity.  Whilst Nietzche's ideal was unrealistic (and, as the Nazis were to prove, politically dangerous),  Strauss, like the astronauts at Cape Canaveral, certainly comes close.