Heldenleben

It takes a fair bit of self-confidence to make yourself the hero of a symphonic poem. Richard Strauss had it. And with Heldenleben, he created a monument to himself as a ‘heroic’ composer, albeit one tinged with irony. At his side is a languishing wife, while a crowd of grumbling music critics attack him in vain. With her ‹Bonus Track›, Helena Winkelman transports Strauss into the realm of a musical cartoon. Elena Firsova's concerto for saxophone quartet and orchestra develops from a delicate beginning into a danse macabre. Markus Poschner performed it in Linz in 2023 and is now bringing it to Basel. Together with Beethoven's Leonore Overture, music for an opera in which the hero is not a man, but his courageous wife who rescues him from prison.