The seduction of beauty and goodness in both life and art: it certainly cannot start early enough and should never end. In this respect, Camille Saint-Saëns' immortal “Carnival of the Animals” is aimed right at the programmatic heart of HERBSTGOLD 2024 and its motto “Seduction”: written as a carnival joke – in Austria, by the way – and peppered with profound humour for insiders, the work has long delighted young and old alike with its equally present, directly understandable onomatopoeia. When piano legend Martha Argerich and Iddo Bar-Shai chase across the keys as squirrels and actress Annie Dutoit-Argerich tells the story, everyone will listen spellbound. In contrast, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe captivates without a word with two of the most famous symphonies from the pen of the genius loci Joseph Haydn: in Symphony No. 82 from the group of Paris symphonies, the proverbial bear taps in the finale. And number 100 from the great London dozen has become famous as the „Military Symphony“ due to its breathtaking bang effects.