Strauss wrote his Alpine Symphony for relaxation, in the odd moments between work on operatic projects. Although the first sketches date from 1911, the work's inspiration is traced to a boyhood holiday of mountain-climbing and to the spectacular view of alpine peaks visible from his Bavarian villa at Garmisch. Composition proceeded slowly over several years, which was unusual for a Strauss composition. He was in that period at work with librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal on a new opera, Die Frau ohne Schatten ("The Woman Without a Shadow"), but World War I was beginning and Hofmannsthal was drafted into the Austrian intelligence service; suddenly he had much less time for literary work. Strauss, frustrated by the inaccessibility of his collaborator and in need of some project to absorb his energies, turned to the sketches of the Alpine Symphony, completing the composition and orchestrating it in a hundred-day burst of activity in the winter of 1914-1915.--Page 4 of program notes.