Richard Strauss - "Ah! Ich habe deinen Mund geküsst, Jochanaan" from Salome (Audio + Score)

Performers:
Staatskapelle Dresden
Conductor: Seiji Ozawa
Salome: Jessye Norman


Salome, Op. 54, is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss. The libretto is Hedwig Lachmann's German translation of the 1891 French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde, edited by the composer. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer.

This part in the music is when:
"Salome now declares her love for the severed head, caressing it and kissing the prophet's dead lips passionately. Horrified, Herod orders his soldiers, "Kill that woman!" They rush forward and crush Salome under their shields."

On the chord at 3:48:
"In the final scene of the opera, after Salome kisses Jochanaan's severed head, the music builds to a dramatic climax, which ends with a cadence involving a very dissonant unorthodox chord one measure before rehearsal 361. This single chord has been widely commented on. It has been called "the most sickening chord in all opera", an "epoch-making dissonance with which Strauss takes Salome...to the depth of degradation", and "the quintessence of Decadence: here is ecstasy falling in upon itself, crumbling into the abyss".[14] The chord is often described as polytonal, with a low A7 (a dominant seventh chord) merged with a higher F-sharp major chord. It forms part of a cadence in the key of C-sharp major and is approached and resolved from C–sharp major chords. Not only is the chord shockingly dissonant, especially in its musical context and rich orchestration, it has broader significance due in part to Strauss's careful use of keys and leitmotifs to symbolize the opera's characters, emotions such as desire, lust, revulsion, and horror, as well as doom and death. A great deal has been written about this single chord and its function within the large-scale formal structure of the entire opera."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salome_...)

Join the Score Video Creator Discord Server:
  / discord  

Support me on Patreon:   / ryanpower