Richard Strauss’s orchestral music includes several works with autobiographical significance, including Ein Heldenleben (Naxos 8.554417). Scored for large symphony orchestra, the Symphonia domestica depicts the delights and vicissitudes of married life with Strauss, his wife, child and other family members deftly portrayed in a variety of situations, including a ‘cheerful quarrel’ in which the father has the last word! In contrast, Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings is Strauss’s heartbreaking meditation on the destruction of German culture during World War II.