From Man to Myth

“From Man to Myth” considers how larger-than-life personalities capture the public imagination and, over time, become legend. Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun drifts in with luminous color and sensuous calm, its opening flute line evoking a mythical creature poised between dream and reality. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, “Eroica,” was originally dedicated to Napoleon, whom the composer saw as a heroic symbol of a new era—before famously...