Honorary conductor Iván Fischer and the Konzerthausorchester perform Antonín Dvořák's only violin concerto from 1883 with our Artist in Residence Augustin Hadelich, which is as virtuosic as it is very lyrical in parts.

Afterwards, the stage in the Große Saal will be crowded, because it's time for Richard Strauss: „Thus Spoke Zarathustra“ is „by far the most important, most perfect in form, most interesting and most peculiar of my pieces“, the composer said. After the dress rehearsal in 1896, he was obviously very pleased with himself. Zarathustra, the eremite prophet in Friedrich Nietzsche's much-discussed text who inspired the piece of music, was not at all high spirited. He visited people to tell them about higher connections – and of course they didn't want to listen to him. Fortunately, Richard Strauss's symphonic poem is so magnificent that one cannot help but listen to it and thus, indirectly, to Nietzsche's misunderstood prophet!