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On their first GENUIN CD, the young musicians of the Gellert Ensemble from Central Germany bring an absolute repertoire rarity to life. Under its conductor Andreas Mitschke, the ensemble has produced the oratorio The Raising of Lazarus by Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, the so-called "Bückeburg Bach," on the Leipzig label. Bach wrote his dramatic work together with the Sturm und Drang poet Johann Gottfried Herder, a colorful and nuanced portrait based on the unbelievable story from the New Testament. The Gellert Ensemble presents historical performance practice at the highest level in an impressive, spirited performance!

Richard Strauss is most conspicuously represented in the symphony hall through a handful of the tone poems he produced from the late 1880s through the early years of the twentieth century, some of which—like Death and Transfiguration, Till Eulenspiegel, and Thus Spake Zarathustra—represent high points of their genre. He seemed to draw a double-bar on that phase of his career after writing Symphonia domestica in 1902-03, and he returned to the genre only once more, when An Alpine Symphony occupied him from 1911 to 1915. Apart from that, his production of symphonic poems gave way to his growing interest in composing operas, which was most immediately manifested in Salome (premiered in 1905) and Elektra (1909).