What it is

Performances of Strauss’s huge tone poem An Alpine Symphony are always worth witnessing, for the sheer number of people required to make it happen. To put on this 50-minute, twenty-two-scene depiction of an eleven-hour climb over an Alpine mountain, you need over 100 musicians on stage, another 30 off it, a wind machine, a thunder machine and even a heckelphone.

It’s Strauss at his epically proportioned best. Simone Young, a conductor renowned for her interpretations of Richard Strauss’s music, directs this Mount Everest of a work.

Before the break, Cédric Tiberghien joins the Philharmonic for two sharply contrasted works by Robert Schumann: the sweeping Introduction and Concert Allegro and the mercurial Konzertstück.

This concert is part of The Bridgewater Hall’s International Concert Series.

Questions

When does Alpine Symphony start and end?

Alpine Symphony runs Friday, 4 December 2026, 19:30.

Where is Alpine Symphony?

Alpine Symphony takes place at Bridgewater Hall, Lower Moseley Street, Manchester.

Also at Bridgewater Hall

  1. 19:00BellowheadThu 12 Nov · Bridgewater Hall£41.55
  2. 13:00A4 BrassFri 13 Nov · Bridgewater Hall£15.25
  3. 19:30Christmas OratorioSat 14 Nov · Bridgewater Hall£18.50
  4. 18:00Miss Americana - A Tribute to Taylor SwiftSun 15 Nov · Bridgewater Hall

The same day

The whole day →