It started with a handful of players amid a sea of empty chairs. The vacant seats, laid out for the much larger forces needed later in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s all-Strauss program, lent an unplanned poignancy to the performance of Metamorphosen, a work written in the dying months of World War II. One could imagine this to be a lament for the countless numbers who died, symbolised by the unfilled places on stage. In fact, it was the loss of Germany’s cultural patrimony, through the destruction of opera houses and other institutions in Allied bombing raids, which particularly affected Strauss. Metamorphosen mourns the passing of a world to which he had devoted his life, both as conductor and composer.

The work, which Strauss dubbed a study for twenty-three solo strings, nods to some of Strauss’s most revered musical precursors: one theme resembles King Mark’s lament from Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, while a descending dotted note line is explicitly revealed in the last bars as the main theme from the Funeral March of Beethoven’s Eroica. But the mutable harmonies and the textural variety he was able to create from this homogenous body of instruments are hallmarks of Strauss’s own art. Under Simone Young’s direction, this brooding work was sculpted with care by the string players, but it was also given a sense of momentum, never faltering under the burden of its sorrow until the final pages, when it settled into a frozen, heartbroken calm.

In complete contrast, the rest of the first half was given over to unserious fun; at least, that was what was on the cards. Chronologically, the earliest work on the program was the Burleske for piano and orchestra, written in 1886, not publicly performed until 1890, and only published in 1894. These time lags, uncharacteristic for Strauss, reflect the composer’s doubts about the quality of the piece after his mentor, the pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow, criticised it. It was another Liszt alumnus, Eugen d’Albert, who played in the delayed official première and, while it is not without its flaws, the Burleske has managed to achieve a peripheral position in the pianistic canon.

The soloist, Andrea Lam, certainly had the technical equipment needed to negotiate the tricky piano part: the opening, with its thick Brahmsian chords, was confidently played, and she treated the Rachmaninovian second theme with appropriate warmth. In busy passages, her finger work was pearly; in the louder passages, she had a pleasing fullness to her sound; and the alternating hand passage in the coda was as precise as a machine gun. But what I missed about this performance was the humour of the work, its stylistic playfulness, its ‘burlesque’ qualities. This is, after all, a piece which begins with the timpani playing a solo four-bar melody. Orchestra and soloist mostly came across as earnest, as if trying to make the piece more substantial than it is; when offered in that spirit, it does come up short.

The opening of Also sprach Zarathustra is not just the most famous thing Strauss ever wrote, but it has transcended the world of classical music to become a genuine part of popular culture, recognisable to millions who have never heard the composer’s name. Within the context of his fifth tone poem these ninety seconds, epic though they are, are only a curtain raiser, the sunrise before the prophet Zarathustra goes down to the people. Thereafter the work, which is marked ‘freely after Friedrich Nietzsche’, traces Man’s attempts to find meaning successively in religion, in hedonism, and in science, all of which fail when confronted by nature’s riddles. Only when it is accepted that such moments of disillusionment will inevitably recur (Nietzsche’s ‘eternal return’) does the convalescent reach the merriment of the ‘Dance song’, a waltz in all but name. The ending, as notorious as the opening is celebrated, fades out in B major (the key of humanity), but the eternally unsolvable mystery of nature lingers, symbolised by the pizzicato bass Cs with which the work concludes.

Philosophically abstruse though the programmatic intent of Strauss’s tone poem may be, it is instantly likeable as a sonic tour de force. Virtually all of the instruments have their moment in the sun, and the combination of timbres Strauss draws from his nearly hundred players is endlessly fascinating. This may have been why this concert was designated as one of the Meet the Music series, with numerous school children in attendance. From the Sunrise passage (during which one student at the back of the choir stalls air-drummed along with the timpani) through to the final Night Wanderer’s Song, the orchestra played magnificently. ‘Of Joys and Passions’ purred along with the smoothness of a well-tuned engine; the science fugue unfolded with a sense of inevitability, but also textural clarity; and the dance song sparkled, with Young all but dancing herself on to the podium.

Andrew Haveron played the solo violin passages with aplomb (his duet-like exchanges with Alexandre Oguey on the cor anglais were particularly pleasing), David Elton was rock solid on the exposed trumpet moments, and one must give a special tip of the hat to timpanist Mark Robinson, who was given unusual prominence on this program. Known for her affinity with late nineteenth-century German repertory, Young showed her mettle here, giving Also sprach Zarathustra an élan which made it the unquestioned highlight of the concert.

Simone Young conducts Richard Strauss: A musical odyssey continues at the Sydney Opera House until 6 September 2025. Performance attended: September 4.