Richard Strauss sometimes wrote his personal life into his works, often to the chagrin and his wife Pauline, and with Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Chief Conductor Simone Young’s latest tour we see three sides of the man from the beginning of his long career to near the end.

Although none of the pieces – Burleske, Also Sprach Zarathustra and Metamorphosen – are as blatantly autobiographical as his tone poems Ein Heldenleben or Symphonia Domestica, they do tell us a lot about the composer’s development from a young conductor and performer to being mentored by Hans von Bülow and criticised by his early idol Johannes Brahms, hitting his straps in his mid-thirties and lamenting the destruction of German cities and culture at the end of World War II.

Simone Young conducts the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Photo © Daniela Testa

Young, one of the world’s leading Strauss specialists, chooses to start at the end with his lament for 23 solos strings with its title taken from a poem...