Ludwig van Beethoven’s Eroica went down in history as perhaps the most revolutionary of all his symphonies. Before Eroica, the space of the Main Hall will be filled with the sounds of Richard Strauss’s compositions – the Sextet from his last opera Capriccio and the French Horn Concerto No. 2 in E flat major performed by Radek Baborák with the accompaniment of the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra.
Beethoven composed Symphony No. 3 in E flat major “Eroica” in the years 1803–1804. In the beginning, he wanted to dedicate the work to Napoleon Bonaparte, but when the latter crowned himself Emperor of France, the composer became rabid and immediately abandoned this idea. He then furiously crossed out the dedication from the score, so forcefully that he scratched a hole in the score, according to one of the anecdotes. Eventually, the work was given an Italian name, translated as: Heroic Symphony, written in memory of the great Man.
The symphony is groundbreaking in every aspect – Beethoven’s innovation is manifested by the monumental size of the work, the richness of instrumentation and the spontaneous, deep emotional load it carries.
The last of Richard Strauss’s operas, Capriccio, presents us with a problem: which is more important – poetry or music? This question is at the centre of the story of Countess Madeleine, settled in a castle near Paris and torn between the poet Olivier and the composer Flemish. The melodious Sextet, which we will hear in the first part of the concert, is presented in the opera as a newly composed work by Flemish. It will be preceded by the French Horn Concerto No. 2 in E flat major written in the last years of Strauss’s life. The French horn was of special importance to the composer – Strauss’s father, Franz, was an excellent French horn player at the Munich Court Opera and it was thanks to him that the young artist’s talent was quickly noticed. This concerto is an expression of the Strauss’s fully crystallized language, which is reflected in the work’s prevailing Romantic idiom.