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In the early 1930s, the German composer’s go-to librettist was Stefan Zweig, who suggested adapting an 18th-century libretto—“Prima la musica e poi le parole” (“First the Music and Then the Words”)—that had been turned into an opera by Mozart’s rival, Antonio Salieri. The Jewish-born Zweig fled Austria before he could develop the idea fully (he and his wife committed suicide in Brazil in 1942), and Strauss largely shielded by the war at his country home, periodically pursued the project with another writer. 

Frustrated with the results, the composer finally turned to a trusted colleague, conductor Clemens Krauss, and those two men ended up sharing credit for the libretto of Capriccio. Strauss finished the score quickly. Krauss conducted the premiere on October 28, 1942, in Munich before an enthusiastic audience that navigated blacked-out streets to get there and scurried home just before the nightly Allied bombing.

Subtitled “A Conversation Piece for Music,” Capriccio takes place at a chateau outside Paris, circa 1775. On the eve of her birthday, a widowed Countess, Madeleine, can’t choose between two ardent suitors, the composer Flamand and the poet Olivier. After debates and tangents involving a theater director, an actress and other characters, everyone agrees that Flamand and Olivier should collaborate on an opera about the discussions that took place that day. But the ending for this new opera will be left up to the Countess. That decision, to be delivered the next morning, will also determine who will win her hand and, by extension, which art she values more—words or music.

By providing Capriccio with an exquisite instrumental introduction, Strauss appears to tip the scale toward the musical side of the equation at the start. But he hardly slights the text, with its wit and many passions; his natural approach to treating dialogue creates a truly conversational effect, animated with an endless variety of melodic sparks.

An extraordinary portion of the score is as much at home in a concert hall as in an opera house—“Moonlight Music.” This orchestral passage occurs as the Countess, lost in thought about the decision she must make, walks onto a terrace bathed in moonglow. An elegant horn theme leads the way in this interlude, which expands into a lush, mini-tone poem that, with its nostalgic mood and coloring, evokes the Four Last Songs Strauss would write after the war.

In the final scene of Capriccio, the conflicted Countess thinks back to a sonnet that Olivier penned for her and that Flamand set to music, making the two men—and their art—inseparable in her eyes: “Their love enfolds me, tenderly woven out of verses and sounds … In choosing one, you lose the other.” As for the opera her admirers are now working on, the Countess gazes into a mirror and asks if the image looking back at her can help find an ending by the morning deadline—“Is there one that is not trivial?”

Throughout this soliloquy, Strauss treats the soprano as only he could, like a supple, limitless instrument. The vocal line soars and swirls and sighs, supported by gorgeous orchestration. After the Countess, with a graceful upward turn of phrase, poses her question to the mirror, the orchestra provides an ending that’s anything but trivial.

Following a transcendent synthesis of themes from earlier in the score, a solo horn delivers what sounds like two more questions. Calm, but firm, answers from the rest of the ensemble provide a satisfying harmonic resolution. End of discussion. Music gets the last word.

The wait of more than two decades proved worth it. With his Symphony No. 1, Brahms sent a bold message to the whole world: “Roll over, Beethoven, tell Tchaikovsky the news.” (OK, maybe not in so many words, but that’s the gist.)

The introduction to the first movement grabs attention with ominous pounding from a timpani (a nod to Beethoven’s “tread,” perhaps), and a searing idea that rises from the strings while wind instruments pull in the opposite direction. After bouts of anxiety and expectant, pizzicato-flecked calm, an oboe’s serene song helps usher in the rest of the movement. More drama ensues, fueled by angular thematic ideas and restless, often thunderous propulsion. Contrasting material attempts to spread a sweeter mood here and there, but the angsty material proves hard to keep down. In the compressed coda, the action slows to the worrisome beat of the timpani, bringing the introduction back to mind. But, after a lot of C minor darkness, Brahms allows a sliver of sunlight to end the movement on a gentle C major chord.

An even more eventful journey of harmony and mood awaits in the similarly structured finale. Before then, two shorter movements unfold.

The serene Andante contains melodies that, with each rise and fall, speak with a warm heart. A solo violin adds a poignant touch at the close.

The easy-going third movement sets course with a lilting clarinet theme (excuse the nerdy minutiae, but the first half of this melody is turned upside down to form the second half—Brahms loved doing that sort of thing). A peppy middle section is punctuated by repeated notes in groups of three. After the opening material returns, the three-note pattern slips back in, no longer insistent.

Soon after the symphony’s premiere, conductor Hans von Bulow referred to it as “Beethoven’s Tenth.” That wasn’t fair to Brahms, but the work’s finale does provide an excuse for the quip, thanks to a grand melody that bears a similarity to the “Ode to Joy” in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. (Asked about the resemblance, Brahms famously replied, “Any jackass can hear that.”) But there’s more than enough difference, and what happens to the theme as the finale proceeds—that’s 100-percent, inimitable Brahms.

The introductory portion of the finale puts us back into the brooding grip of C minor. Out of a slow, mysterious haze, explosive episodes emerge and recede, interspersed with unsettling rushes of pizzicato. Then pure magic—a horn call that floats over tremulous strings, as if to calm a churning sea. This new idea, picked up by the flute, is followed by another magical touch, a comforting, hymn-like passage intoned by trombones and bassoons.

After a little pause comes the uplifting Beethoven-esque melody, basking in C major. Its appearance, Clara Schumann wrote, “makes one’s heart expand like a breath of spring air after the long, dreary days of winter.” An amiable second theme arrives after a bit. Melodic, harmonic and rhythmic aspects of these two themes, along with the introduction’s horn call, are brilliantly mined to create a sense of continual development as the finale gathers triumphant momentum. At one point, just when a huge build-up suggests that the main tune is about to get one more rousing chorus, Brahms pulls a fast one—you know it well enough by now, he seems to say—and heads instead into a rousing coda. The accelerating music takes a breath just long enough for another reminder of the introduction, the chorale tune, now given a lustrous, full-brass treatment. The hard-driving measures that follow register like massive exclamation points, all the better to underline the originality and expressive power of the entire symphony.