The Rotterdam Student Orchestra presents three heroic tales of glory and ruin.Alexander Borodin: Overture ‘Prince Igor’Edvard Grieg: Peer Gynt suitesLudwig van Beethoven: Symphony no. 3 (‘Eroica’)Conductor: Coen HuismanThe epic poem of Prince Igor tells the story of a prince in the Kievan Rus’ who leads an ill-fated military campaign against a nomadic Turkic tribe. His army is defeated and he is captured by the enemy, but ultimately, he manages to escape and prepare a new battle plan in order to save his people. Alexander Borodin (1833–1887) started working on an opera based on the tale in 1869. With its broad epic themes and dramatic story, as well as its juxtaposition of national character and oriental influences, Prince Igor fits perfectly into Borodin’s artistic and ideological beliefs.
In the dramatic poem Peer Gynt, Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen describes the adventurous life of its titular character. The good-for-nothing Peer invents heroic stories about himself to escape the harsh reality, later becomes rich through slave trade in North Africa, then loses everything again and has his soul saved by his beloved Solvejg. Ibsen approached Edvard Grieg (1843–1907) to compose incidental music for the drama, and Grieg later extracted two orchestral suites from Peer Gynt (1888 and 1891), which to this day are among the Romantic composer’s most popular works.The ultimate ‘heroic’ piece of classical orchestral music is arguably Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony no. 3, named ‘Eroica’. When Beethoven (1770–1826) began working on his third symphony in 1803, the composer was inspired by the heroic achievements of Napoleon Bonaparte in revolutionary France, whom he idealised. But once Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor in 1804, betraying the revolutionary ideals shared by Beethoven, the composer quickly changed the title from ‘Bonaparte’ to ‘Eroica’. In its four movements, the symphony embarks on a psychological journey and guides the audience through a remarkable growth process, all while celebrating its (fallen) hero.