In “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks,” Richard Strauss musically guides his hero through a life of folly marked by highs and lows, in which drama is just as present as poetry. In 1954, the Viennese composer Franz Hasenöhrl distilled a “pocket edition”, for five instruments from this work, allowing you to experience the otherwise stage-filling “Symphonic Poem” in a chamber music setting at our Sunday matinee.

While Hasenöhrl provided a miniature version, Franz Schubert marched into the opposite direction with his famous, approximately 50-minute Octet,  In 1824, he wrote that he wanted to “pave [his] way to the great symphony in this manner.” The result is one of the most beautiful examples of mixed chamber music for winds and strings. Seven musicians from the KHO will play it for you, with Tobias Feldmann as a guest on first violin.

In between, the relatively short F minor Quartet from 1810/11 will be performed. It's a stark outlier among Beethoven’s string quartets that lives up to its nickname “Quartteto serioso”. One critic wrote that the work, composed during a time of personal disappointment and the oppressive realities of war, consists of “explosions of unbridled passion within the tightest of confines.”