Jonathan Kelly (oboe), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kazuki Yamada

Richard Strauss
Tod und Verklärung Op.24 (1888-9)
Oboe Concerto in D major AV144 (1945)
Also sprach Zarathustra, Op.30 (1896)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Wednesday 10 December 2025

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture of Jonathan Kelly (c) Stefan Hoederath

Richard Strauss is among a relatively select number of composers, the range and breadth of whose output makes it suitable for a whole programme – as was evident from this evening’s concert by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and music director Kazuki Yamada.

Never one to miss such an opportunity, Strauss had evidently conceived his tone poem Death and Transfiguration in the wake of illness only to extend its remit accordingly. Yamada duly had its measure: whether in the not so stark fatalism of its opening pages, the tussle with his approaching demise audibly relished by the protagonist then emergence of that transfiguring state which, after the brief and rather jarring interjection of earlier angst (no more convincing here than almost any other performance) sees this work through to a fervent culmination then on to its beatific close. Not consistently more than the sum of its best parts, and with internal detail sometimes obscured in the onslaught of its vehement tuttis, this was still an involving account – lessened not a jot by its underlining Strauss’s enjoyment of his emotional strivings.

Onward 46 years to the Oboe Concerto the ageing composer wrote at the promptings of US army corporal and professional oboist John de Lancie. Much the finest of those concertante pieces from Strauss’s ‘Indian summer’, its three movements merge into the finely balanced continuity that Jonathan Kelly (above) – making a welcome return to the orchestra of which he was solo oboist during 1993-2003 – relished throughout. The elegance of its initial Allegro here abetted by a degree of nonchalance, as was the poise of its Andante with deftest pathos, his reading came into its own in a Vivace whose cadenza passages were as eloquent as the coda that Strauss duly extended to make this movement an unerring fusion of scherzo and finale. Kelly understandably offered no encore, but he returned to join the CBSO after the interval.

That second half consisted of Thus spake Zarathustra – if not the most ambitious of Strauss’ tone poems in size then surely in scope, whether or not the depths of Nietzsche’s existential musings are really plumbed. The indelible ‘Sunrise’ treading a fine line between profundity and portentousness, Yamada charted its idiosyncratic journey toward spiritual enlightenment with a sure sense of where this music was headed – no matter that the outcome felt as much   a glorification of orchestral power and opulence as of anything more intrinsically humane.

Highlights during its course included the sustained emotional force in ‘Of Joys and Passions’, the textural unanimity of the strings across their fugal writing in ‘Of Science and Learning’, and suavity then mounting animation of ‘The Dance Song’ with leader Eugene Tzikindelean in his element – before ‘Song of the Night Wanderer’ brought proceedings down from their orgiastic heights into that sombre repose whose tonal inconclusiveness may be an indicator  of Strauss’s own perspective; the certainly of those opening bars left pointedly unresolved.

Its pizzicato chords on lower strings made a telling farewell for Eduardo Vassallo, principal cellist throughout much of the past 36 seasons. His broad sympathies including Argentinian tango, and a characterful Don Quixote to boot, leaves players and listeners alike in his debt.

Published post no.2,747 – Saturday 13 December 2025

For more on the CBSO’s season for 2025/26, head to the CBSO website – and for more on the artists in this programme, click on the names to visit the websites of conductor Kazuki Yamada, oboist Jonathan Kelly and principal cellist Eduardo Vassallo