The title character's recurring theme consists of horns and celli playing E major triads that ascend through four octaves, while a solo violin theme represents Pauline de Ahna, the title character of its third movement.
The only significant period of silence in this work is a grand pause following a dominant seventh chord from the trumpets at the end of its first movement. The title character's recurring theme consists of horns and celli playing E major triads that ascend through four octaves, while a solo violin theme represents Pauline de Ahna, the title character of its third movement. This work's second movement features a four-note leitmotif played in parallel fifths by Wagner and bass tubas that represents the critic Eduard Hanslick, perhaps the foremost of the title figure's "adversaries". The penultimate movement, named for the title figure's "works of peace", quotes such other works by its composer as Macbeth and Also Sprach Zarathustra. For 10 points, identify this 1898 tone poem whose courageous title character may or may not represent its composer, Richard Strauss.
The only significant period of silence in this work is a grand pause following a dominant seventh chord from the trumpets at the end of its first movement.
Ein Heldenleben [or A Hero's Life; accept Richard Strauss's Opus 40]