The sounds presented in this concert programme are intoxicating and hungry for life: They tell the stories of their composers’ creative urges and breakthrough. Richard Strauss’ symphonic poem Don Juan was a great audience success. Its heroic cadences immediately convinced the young composer’s listeners. Johannes Brahms did not achieve this so quickly with his first orchestral work: after much hesitation, he premiered his First Piano Concerto in Hanover in 1859, but the second performance of the work in Leipzig was already a flop with the public. From then on, the composer still had a long way to go to achieve resounding success. Today, it is impossible to imagine orchestral music without his brilliant piano concerto. Antonín Dvořák wrote his Symphony No. 8 during a period of international triumph. In his euphoria, he was literally overrun by the countless musical ideas that found their way into the work.