Premiered during WWII, Arthur Honegger’s Symphony No. 2 (1942), bathed in an atmosphere of refinement and drama, together with constant tension, resolves nonetheless in a spirit of optimism in its chorale finale. Generally presumed to have been inspired by the destruction of the Munich National Theater in the bombings of October 1943, followed by the destruction of the opera houses of Dresden, Weimar and Vienna, Richard Strauss’s late masterpiece Metamorphosen (1946) is a lament for the German cultural world in which he lived. Emmanuel Leducq-Barome conducts.
