Belgian National Orchestra, Schønwandt & Queyras

Each movement of Carl Nielsen’s Second Symphony expresses one of the four temperaments: choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic and sanguine. These personality traits were once defined by the Greek physician Hippocrates and inspired many works of art, including a woodcut that Carl Nielsen saw hanging in a Danish pub, which inspired this work.
One could describe Don Quixote as a sanguine melancholic. In 1897, Richard Strauss decided to dedicate a symphonic poem to this literary anti-hero created by Cervantes. With the cello as the main character, Richard Strauss ingeniously translated Don Quixote’s adventures into music.