Ein Heldenleben is a tone poem by German composer Richard Strauss, composed in 1898 and first performed in 1899. The late-Romantic orchestral work is characteristic of programme music, employing expansive orchestration, sweeping thematic transformations and virtuosic solo passages to depict a hero's life, and it sits among Strauss's large-scale tone poems that mark his mature output around the turn of the century.
