Description
Strauss Träumerei, tr. D. Piana
Richard Strauss’s early piano piece Träumerei, No. 4 is from the set Stimmungsbilder op. 9, composed in 1884. The piece gives an inkling of his future mastery of the orchestral brush stroke. It unleashes grand atmospheric imagery within the constraints of a late-romantic miniature. As an aside for harp aficionados, it should be mentioned that Strauss’s first piano teacher was August Tombo, the harpist in the Munich orchestra where his father played the horn. He is now barely remembered as the author of a thick harp method. Dominique Piana “transposed” the original piano music from F# Major to Gb Major, to better allow the harp sonorities to ring out. In this way, it fits in with many other romantic works in the same key, and its conceptual originality is immediately apparent.
