As the green earth slowly dies away into winter, it’s natural for a person to ponder his/her own end.

That’s exactly what Richard Strauss did in his “Death and Transfiguration.” The work is a tone poem: a piece of music, usually a single movement, that tells a story or evokes a mood using music rather than words. Strauss didn’t event the tone poem (it slowly evolved throughout the late 19th century), but many will argue that the form achieved perfection in his music.

Death and Transfiguration portrays the process of dying. Someone (perhaps the composer, in his imagination) lies on his deathbed; the great struggle to survive ensues; his life flashes before his eyes – he sees his childhood, his loves, his dreams and failures; finally, he accepts his end and is ‘transfigured’ to a perfect state of being – heaven, nirvana, the afterlife. Perhaps Strauss was preparing himself for his own end, hoping to approach the moment with grace and elegance rather than fear. It is said that, on his deathbed, Strauss commented that passing was just as he composed it to be.

The ‘transfiguration’ theme first occurs at 13:06 – this short vision of heaven helps bring the protagonist from fear and suffering to a peaceful death. AND, it’s nearly identical to the second theme of John William‘s Superman music.