Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Overture »Idomeneo«
(1780–1781)
Benjamin Britten
Piano Concerto (1938–1945)
Richard Strauss
»Ein Heldenleben« – tone poem for large orchestra (1897–1898)
- Sunwook Kim piano
- Gürzenich-Orchester Köln
- Michael Sanderling conductor
Every hero has his adversaries. Idomeneo, rescued from a storm by the gods, is supposed to give thanks by sacrificing his own son. The subject inspired Mozart to one of his most dramatic overtures. After Richard Strauss helped bring literary figures like Till Eulenspiegel, Zarathustra and Don Quixote to abundant musical vividness, he saw that the time had come to align himself to that series of idiosyncratic philosophers with Wilhelmine pomp and lustrous sonority. Thus he composed ‘Ein Heldenleben’, in which he presents everything the magic box of sounds of the late Romantic orchestra has to offer. While the adversaries of his clay heroes natter away in the editorial offices, he seeks protection against the belligerent machinations of the world in the arms of his wife Pauline, whose motif of yearning runs through the score and inspired one of the most beautiful violin solos in music history. Forty years later, when faced with the military conflicts in the world, the modest, self-doubting Benjamin Britten confided his concerns to his instrument, the piano, quite differently: a hero’s portrait of a very different kind, full of a filigree play of voices, with a touch of Viennese waltz in the second movement and seasoned with British humour. The work is a well-kept secret and will be conjured up on the keyboard by up-and-coming Korean pianist Sunwook Kim. Michael Sanderling is the seasoned hero on the podium.