European Union Youth Orchestra

Two works of variations -  but completely different! Don Quixote occupies literary history as the «Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance». Richard Strauss chose Miguel de Cervantes's tragi-comic hero as the protagonist of an ironic orchestral work as a counterpart to «Ein Heldenleben», with solo cello representing Don Quixote and solo viola as Sancho Panza. Benjamin Britten, likewise, reached far into the past when he took a theme by Henry Purcell as the basis for his «Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra». In variations for the various sections of the orchestra, the theme is artfully stripped down and modified, and finally reassembled in a triumphant fugue. A classic for young and old.