A Hero’s Life: Pappano conducts Ein Heldenleben I London Symphony Orchestra

From Richard Strauss’s sweeping self portrait to the musical poetry of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Sir Antonio Pappano conducts an evening of music that’s larger than life.

Richard Strauss never did anything by halves, and he wasn’t a man for false modesty either. Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) is a grand, swashbuckling musical self portrait or the composer as superhero, and it doesn’t hold back: there’s a battle, and even a love scene. Liszt and the British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor are perhaps more restrained, but every bit as imaginative.

‘A conductor has to be theatrical,’ says Sir Antonio Pappano, and as a veteran of the opera house, the LSO’s future Chief Conductor is a master at bringing characters to life, and telling a story with music. From Liszt’s soaring idealism to Strauss’ supersized musical comedy, this is a concert that lets him do exactly that.