Die große Reihe – Staunen

Symphony concert by the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra in the Liederhalle

KORNGOLD | Suite from "The Adventures of Robin Hood"
STRAUSS | Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks
BEETHOVEN | Symphony No. 3 "Eroica"

Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Dmitry Matvienko

(ANTI)HEROES

At the age of 10, Erich Wolfgang Korngold played to the deeply impressed Gustav Mahler. The child prodigy's early works were performed by conductors such as Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler and Richard Strauss. Korngold's greatest success was probably the opera "Die tote Stadt" from 1920, premiered in Hamburg and Cologne at the same time and already at the New York Met in 1921. When he visited Hollywood in 1938, he learned of the "Anschluss" of Austria to the "Greater German Reich" and was unable to return to his homeland. Thus began his second career as a film composer, with a total of 19 film scores that decisively shaped the Hollywood symphonic sound. He received an "Oscar" in 1938 for the film music to "The Adventures of Robin Hood". The centerpiece is the love scene between Robin Hood and Lady Marian, in which the latter is represented by the violin and the latter by the cello.

Strauss' colleague Claude Debussy was present at a performance of the tone poem "Till Eulenspielgel's Merry Pranks" (1895) in Paris and commented: " This piece resembles 'an hour of new music with the madmen' [...] and one wonders that everything is still in its usual place, for it would not be at all surprising if the double basses blew on their bows, the trombones stroked their bells with imaginary bows [....All this does not detract from the genius of the piece, above all the extraordinary security of the orchestral treatment and an irrepressible movement that sweeps us along from beginning to end and forces us to experience all the hero's pranks."

The audience at the premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven's Third Symphony (1803) also felt confused and carried away. The composer had originally wanted to call the piece "Bonaparte" because he considered Napoleon Bonaparte to be a fighter for the ideals of the French Revolution. However, Beethoven felt that these had been betrayed at the latest when Napoleon crowned himself emperor.