Horn Concerto no. 1 in E-flat major, op. 11

Strauss was eighteen when he wrote the First Horn Concerto in 1883, for his father Franz — principal horn at the Munich court opera — and marked it for his parents' wedding anniversary. Franz Strauss judged the solo part technically too demanding and did not play it. The concerto reached the platform without him and has stayed in the repertoire since, one of the first substantial scores by a composer still in his teens. More than sixty years later, at the end of his life, Strauss returned to the instrument with a considerably harder second concerto.