Did you know... Strauss makes violists play violin?
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Live Klassisk1 min read|1. September 2026
Did you know that... you get to hear violin-playing violists and the Heckelphone in Richard Strauss' Elektra?
Imagine how violently Richard Strauss' opera struck the music world when it premiered in Dresden in January 1909! The music was so dissonant and psychologically intense that even Arnold Schönberg, one of music history's most groundbreaking composers, is said to have admitted: «I was never a revolutionary. The only revolutionary of our time was Strauss!»
The orchestration in the score is absolutely enormous! With nearly a hundred musicians, a common joke has been that one might just as well put the orchestra out in the auditorium and the audience down in the orchestra pit - there we have a tip for DNO&B's next production!
Not only are there many musicians involved, but also some rather unusual instrumentation. In Elektra you get to hear the Heckelphone (an instrument that more or less only Strauss used), Wagner tubas, basset horn, contrabass trombone and bass trumpet! Not least - watch out for violin-playing violists!
📸 Erik Berg, DNO&B