Richard Strauss acquired an early reputation as a composer and conductor before winning international fame for his tone-poems, culminating in Ein Heldenleben in 1898. In 1905 he provoked outrage with his first successful opera, Salome, the first of a series eagerly anticipated by contemporary audiences. In a long life Strauss also added to the repertoire of German song, summing up a romantic tradition, as he had in the nostalgic opera Der Rosenkavalier.

Ein Heldenleben makes heavy demands on an orchestra. Autobiographical in content, it mocks and silences the composer’s critics, portrays his wife, loving and capricious, and offers a musical summary of his earlier work. Macbeth, based on Shakespeare, shows Macbeth’s vaulting ambition, the wiles of Lady Macbeth, the royal power of King Duncan, and the usurper’s final defeat, as trumpets herald the approach of Malcolm and Macduff.