Through the centuries, the hero has been a central icon in German literature, bardic stanzas, paintings and tapestries — as well as in the country’s music, from the Christ-centered devotion of Bach’s masses to the mythic, domestically challenged gods of Wagner’s Valhalla.

Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony presented a pair of large-scale works by two German composers, Beethoven and Richard Strauss, in their first season appearance at the Adrienne Arsht Center Saturday night.

The German heroic tradition has had its unsettling manifestations as well, not least the unsavory use that Hitler and the Third Reich made of Nietzsche’s concept of the ”Superman,” outlined in his Also Sprach Zarathustra.

Richard Strauss was more intrigued by the intellectual and musical implications of Nietzsche’s philosophy as reflected in his free-form riff of the same name, crafted as a tone poem for large orchestra.

The majestic introduction makes the work’s three-note motif (C-G-C) gloriously manifest but even more ingenious are Strauss’ various permutations, as with the monastic spiritual solace in Of the Backworldsmen, or the impersonal fugue in Of Science.

Yet rather than grim or dour, Strauss’ retooled Nietzsche is often exuberant and even whimsical, not least with the dance of the Superman morphing into a lilting, violin-led Viennese waltz.

The intensity of Saturday’s performance at the Knight Concert Hall can be gauged by the fact that Tilson Thomas’ baton went flying into the first row during the opening sunrise (a spare was quickly and unobtrusively secured).

Zarathustra’s grand moments made their impact with a sonorous and majestic opening, and a notably tempestuous Of Joys and Passions. Yet in addition to the conductor’s seamless direction of what can be an episodic work, most striking was the elegance and tonal beauty of the orchestral sound, notably the glowing violins in Of the Great Longing and the burnished lower strings in the fugue. Katherine Bormann was a polished violin soloist, and if her Tanzlied could have used a bit more swagger, the concertmaster’s playing was immaculate in the exposed final bars.

Beethoven originally dedicated his Symphony No. 3 to Napoleon, famously crossing out the dedication in anger upon learning the French general had crowned himself emperor.

Tilson Thomas often gets his due as an interpreter of Mahler, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky, but his Beethoven is on the same inspirational level. The conductor’s boldly outlined style is especially well-suited to the Eroica, shearing off the accumulated bombast and heaviness and resulting in a lithe, incisive reading.

Even coming after the brilliance and sonic splendor of Strauss’s tone poem, MTT and the musicians managed to put across the power, emotional extremes and fist-shaking audacity of the Eroica magnificently.

While keenly dramatic with firm momentum, the performance often had an airy grace and lightness, with springy rhythms and lean tonal refinement. The funeral march was especially fine, flowing and divested of excessive rhetoric with textures clear, the music unfolding naturally and the climax having cumulative impact.