‘As Beethoven’s Eroica is so unpopular with our conductors," wrote Richard Strauss to his publisher in 1898, “And, therefore, very seldom performed today, I am now composing — to make up for a pressing need — a large tone poem entitled A Hero’s Life [Ein Heldenleben].”

Just how large was clearly flagged up at the Oxford Philomusica’s performance of the work in the Sheldonian. Strauss specified a huge orchestra, to include eight horns, five trumpets, two harps, and “at least” 64 strings. The only cut I noticed was to the strings, which were down to a “mere” 50 or so. With these still massive forces, conductor Marios Papadopoulos was soon demonstrating Strauss’s mastery of orchestral colour painting.

While pooh-poohing the idea that he himself was the hero involved, Strauss’s own enemies are quite clearly the subject of the work’s second section, entitled The Hero’s Adversaries: sharp and chattering woodwind playing vividly and hilariously portrayed bitching music critics.

Meanwhile, The Hero’s Companion — a character based on Strauss’s beloved wife Pauline — was portrayed in all her many moods. The strings excelled in the yearning love scene, and the violin solo which marks the Companion’s first appearance was movingly played by orchestra leader Tamas Andras. Next the Hero goes off to war: the ensuing battle scene is surely one of the best pieces of descriptive orchestral music ever written, and the Philomusica brass players shone here. Congratulations, too, to someone not on the platform — Nick Breckenfield’s programme notes were a model of clarity. Conductor Papadopoulos also proved very responsive to the varied orchestral colouring in Strauss’s Four Last Songs. Soloist Judith Howarth sounded a bit over-bright and abrasive in the loudest passages for my taste, but her heartfelt delivery of the last song, At Sunset, which celebrates the composer’s long and loving marriage as death approaches, reduced me to a tearful jelly, just as it should.