Sentimental Work: Tim Kliphuis

Richard Strauss’s Morgen! opened up a new world of opportunities for me, and performing it for the first time in concert was a pivotal moment in my career. Before that, I was almost exclusively a jazz violinist, and although I’d thought about combining jazz with classical, the right direction hadn’t struck me yet. In 2006 I was contacted by Bernd Gellermann, artistic director of the Richard Strauss Festival in Germany, who asked me to perform. There was one condition: the programme had to include pieces by Strauss. I wasn’t sure if I should take the offer, but I remembered the advice Stéphane Grappelli once gave me: ‘Say yes to everything, because opportunities don’t grow on trees!’ So I started going through all the Strauss pieces I knew. None of them seemed right for an improvisation, until I got to the four songs he wrote in 1894, as a wedding present for his fiancée. I chose Morgen! (‘Tomorrow!’) and Heimliche Aufforderung (‘The Secret Invitation’) and performed them both at the end of the concert…