As part of the Kirklees Season, Chief Conductor Juanjo Mena conducts a programme of works by three generations of Austro-German masters. Franz Strauss was renowned as a virtuoso horn player, and his son Richard composed his First Horn Concerto with the hope that his father would give the premi ere. In the event, the technical demands of this wonderfully fresh work, rich in melody, were deemed too risky by Strauss senior, who was by then in his sixties. Schubert’s genial Sixth Symphony owes much to the example of Haydn, while Brahms’ Third Symphony is a work of striking contrasts. The allegretto third movement, laced with melancholy, is a favourite for many, and it is followed by a tautly dramatic finale which eventually relaxes into a quiet ending that glows like sunshine through Autumn haze.
