Essentials: Strauss’ Don Quixote by Strauss, sob. 21 jun. 2025, Od (2025/2025), Dirigent Han-Na Chang, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Essentials series introduces you to the masterpieces you will be happy to know, performed by the world-famous Concertgebouw Orchestra and complete with a lively introduction by the incomparable Thomas Vanderveken. At Essentials we welcome a new generation of music lovers, and the concerts typically have a pleasant informal atmosphere. Richard Strauss was unrivalled in his ability to make the most fantastic scenes come to life in music. Cervantes’s novel Don Quixote served as Strauss’s inspiration for his Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character. The adventures of the knight-errant and his faithful squire, as heroic as they are hilarious, come to life as the orchestra’s principal cellist Tatiana Vassilyeva and principal violist Santa Vižine, with support from the tenor tuba and bass clarinet, join their orchestra in battle. But who are they fighting? Windmills, sheep and, of course, the knight of the bright moon. Essentials starts at 9 p.m. with an imaginative introduction to the programme (in Dutch).