“An instrument with the range of the human voice”: it is no wonder the cello evokes such emotion. Victor Julien-Laferrière, winner of the first-ever Queen Elisabeth Competition for cello, performs the repertoire's first great concerto by Robert Schumann. Following this, principal cellist Karel Steylaerts brings the flamboyant and ironic struggle of Strauss’s Don Quixote to life.

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“To surrender dreams — this may be madness.”
Schumann wrote the first true cello concerto, though he never heard it performed during his lifetime. Its enduring popularity lies in its emotional depth, as Victor Julien-Laferrière notes: “I hope Schumann’s concerto offers the audience a deeply romantic moment, evoking someone alone with their thoughts, in an intimate dialogue with nature.”

Richard Strauss, a master of musical storytelling, reached new heights with Don Quixote. ‘Fantastic variations on a theme of knightly character,’ he subtitled this symphonic poem, based on Cervantes’ book about the knight-errant. And fantastic it is: a masterfully composed tale that sweeps listeners along—at times delicately, at others with irony and flamboyance—into the battle against injustice.