Which composer wrote the symphonic poem Also sprach Zarathustra, premiered in 1896?

Richard Strauss wrote the symphonic poem Also sprach Zarathustra, premiered in 1896.

Strauss composed the work in 1896, drawing inspiration from Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical book of the same German title. Its opening, “Sunrise,” uses a powerful organ and orchestral statement that became widely recognizable through concerts, recordings, and later popular culture.

The work is divided into sections with titles connected to Nietzsche’s text. Strauss did not attempt to set the entire book word for word; instead, he created a broad orchestral meditation on its ideas and imagery.

The first performance took place in Frankfurt on 27 November 1896, conducted by Strauss. The title can be confused with Richard Wagner because both composers wrote influential German orchestral and operatic music, but Also sprach Zarathustra belongs to Strauss’s tone-poem output of the late nineteenth century.