This is the fifth and final installment of the Strauss Complete Tone Poems Cycle performed by the Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg under their chief conductor Francois-Xavier Roth. The other volumes in this cycle have been positively reviewed all over the world. The orchestra and conductor are a perfect match for Richard Strauss’ lively and ecstatic music. Completed on New Year’s Eve, 1903, Strauss’ Symphonia domestica, like his ensuing final tone poem, Eine Alpensinfonie, are paradoxically termed ‘symphonies.’ Symphonic poems are usually based on an extra-musical programme, while the genre of the symphony embodies the concept of absolute music, intended as a counter-world to reality. Strauss disregarded this separation and designed the Symphonia domestica as a symphony, but with a programme, namely “a symphonic self-and family-portrait.” The composer depicts both himself, his wife, and his son in various musical tableaux. Revolving around the banalities of everyday life, the music has a twinkle in its eye.