Category:  Symphonic / Orchestral , Chamber Music

The Horn Concerto No. 1, ‘The Dream of Eternity – Richard Wagner and Ludwig II’, traces the unique friendship between Richard Wagner and the ‘Fairy-Tale King’, Ludwig II. Inspired by the pursuit of the highest art and a boundless wealth of romantic ideas, they collaborated to create musical works and architectural masterpieces that continue to fascinate people to this day and exert an almost magnetic pull – the great operas such as *Tristan & Isolde*, *Parsifal*, *Rheingold*, *Siegfried*, *Die Walküre* and *Götterdämmerung*, as well as the castles of Neuschwanstein, Herrenchiemsee, Hohenschwangau and the Bayreuth Festival Theatre. In the musical dramaturgy, the solo horn embodies the composer (featuring many original Wagner quotations), whilst the bassoon represents the king in the spirit of a dialogue.

The short audio snippets are:
1) dokumentarischer Mitschnitt der UA Orchesterfassung vom 12. Juli 2026 Internationales Hornsympoium Krakau, mit Christoph Ess, Krakauer Philharmonie, Fagott Wojciech Turek, Dirigent: Will Sanders

2) dokumentarischer Mitschnitt der UA Klavierfassung am 5. Juni 2026 Horntage Staufen mit Christoph Ess (Horn) und Atsuko Kinoshita (Piano)

Movements: I „So schön und geistvoll, seelenvoll und herrlich“ (R. Wagner 1864)
II Neuschwanstein, die Gralsburg
III Vom Ende eines Traums

English version:

I “So beautiful and spirited, so soulful and magnificent” (R. Wagner, 1864)
II Neuschwanstein, the Castle of the Holy Grail
III The End of a Dream

Duration: 22 Minutes

Publisher of notes/sheet music: Schott Music , Full Score, Piano Score & Parts , 2026

Instrumentation: French Horn (in F) Solo
Strings and bassoon

Solo instruments: French Horn

Introduction: It was a bond between two souls that was as surreal as it was boundless, unparalleled in history and emblematic of German Romanticism: a king straight out of a fairy tale, who built himself a legendary fantasy world with castles beyond the realm of the imaginable, meets his brilliant alter ego – a composer who, with an insatiable longing, is likewise obsessed with utopias. Driven by the ideal of an art form that encompassed poetry, music and architecture in equal measure, they left behind cultural legacies that continue to fascinate humanity to this day: be it castles or residences such as Neuschwanstein, or works such as *Tristan und Isolde*, *Rheingold*, *Die Walküre*, *Siegfried*, *Götterdämmerung* and *Parsifal* – the latter also crowned architecturally by the Bayreuth Festival Theatre.
The Horn Concerto No. 1 traces this unique artistic friendship through its three snapshots:
The first movement is inspired by a quote from Wagner dating from 1864: ‘... so beautiful and spirited, soulful and magnificent”, with which the Bayreuth master characterised his royal patron, and features well-known Wagnerian motifs that seem to vie with one another in their ‘beauty’ and ‘nobility’. The second movement, using motifs from Wagner’s *Parsifal*, depicts the magic of a medieval castle, for Ludwig II had always regarded Neuschwanstein as the Castle of the Holy Grail, where, high above humanity and in the freedom of artistic purity, mankind was to be redeemed. The finale is stirring and deeply emotional. It deals with thoughts of death and the enigmatic end of the ‘Fairy-Tale King’, who drowned in Lake Starnberg on 13 June 1886. There is now much to suggest that this was not a suicide committed in a state of mental derangement, but a politically motivated murder.

Dedication: For Christoph ESS in friendship

World premiere:  29.06.2026 , Kraków (Poland) at the 58th International Horn Symposium in the Krysztof Penderecki Academy of Music

Performers at world premiere: Christoph Ess (Horn) and Members of the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Will Sanders (Netherlands)