Opening concert: Strauss' Ein Heldenleben

The opening concert of the AVROTROS Friday Concert season is all about militancy and desire. Karina Canellakis conducts Ein Heldenleben in which Richard Strauss sings of the individual's struggle for freedom complete with military battle. Is it a self-portrait? Victory is celebrated with quotations from other works by Strauss.

Symphonic poem
Strauss is the undisputed master of the symphonic poem: a short, narrative orchestral work. He composed Ein Heldenleben after the example of his great hero Beethoven and his Third Symphony, also called "The Heroic. There is a Dutch touch to its genesis. Strauss dedicated the work to the Concertgebouw Orchestra and conductor Willem Mengelberg.

Paradise World
Canto Paradiso is the title of the new work for choir and orchestra by Ukrainian-Dutch composer Maxim Shalygin who is known for his great adventurousness. Shalygin seeks the limits of musical expression and now points the way to a new, paradisiacal world. German alto Wiebke Lehmkuhl is soloist in Brahms' Altrapsodie, a carried choral work rarely heard live.