Karajan conducts Strauss: Tod und Verklärung & Metamorphosen

Richard Strauss's youthful tone-poem Death and Transfiguration and Metamorphosen, his devastating wartime "Study for 23 solo strings", date from different ends of his life. But in the hands of Herbert von Karajan – who knew the composer personally and lived through the events that inspired Metamorphosen – they became a classic pairing, and the subject of one of the very greatest records he made with the Berliner Philharmoniker. This film documents a live performance given at the 1984 All Saint's Day Concert in Berlin, and if anything it's even more intense: with the Berliners' unrivalled virtuosity and sonic beauty becoming a vehicle for pure, heart-rending expression.

Ensemble: 

Berliner Philharmoniker

Conductor: 

Herbert von Karajan