R. Strauss: Der Bürger als Edelmann op. 60 Phantasy for violin and piano

Tanabata is a symphonic poem for womens choir and orchestra inspired by a traditional Japanese story. 
The text song by the choir is from ther Manyoshu, 

Orchestra : 3.3.3.3-4.3.3.1-Tmp+7-fem choir-str
Premiere in Osaka, July 7th 2011

The piece started with the world of the stars, a perfect and concentrate world expressed by a sort of musical magma that becomes very bright  
Then appears the world of earth, a world of liberty with strong rhythms where the princess of the stars will find a true love (here the choir sings on a Manyochou poem about eternal love)
A love that is interrupted suddenly and violently (percussion, bass drum)
The orchestra plays the tears of the princess and the second choir sings on a poem about the pain and the frustration caused by this separation.
Then comes the announce that the day of Tanabata will arrive, a day where the beauty of eternal love will be always celebrate.

Tanabata (七夕, meaning "Evening of the seventh") is a Japanese star festival, originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival. It celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi (represented by the stars Vega and Altair respectively). According to legend, the Milky Way separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. The date of Tanabata varies by region of the country, but the first festivities begin on July 7 of the Gregorian calendar. The celebration is held at various days between July and August.

Man'yōshū (万葉集 man'yōshū, "Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves") is the oldest existing collection of Japanese poetry, compiled some time after 759 AD during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in a series of compilers, is believed to be Ōtomo no Yakamochi. The collection contains poems ranging from AD 347 (poems #85-89) through 759 (#4516),[2] the bulk of them representing the period after 600. 





Tanabata, symphonic poem

Yannick Paget

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