This concert features two iconic composers and their masterful works that showcase how they subverted the styles of the time and pushed the genre forward. Mozart’s Overture to The Magic Flute is the delightful prelude to his lyrical and joyous Piano Concerto No. 21. Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, one of the most famous and popular symphonies in the history of classical music, brings the concert to a dynamic close.
Read More
Sibelius’s stylistic strengths are on full display in a program opened by his adventurous tone poem En saga and technically challenging Violin Concerto. Of his late-Romantic work, Sibelius wrote: “I begin already dimly to see the mountain that I shall certainly ascend. God opens his door for a moment and his orchestra plays the Fifth Symphony.”
Read More
Showing off the power and majesty of “the king of instruments,” Bradley Hunter Welch is at the Lay Family Concert Organ when the DSO, led by Fabio Luisi, performs Saint-Saëns’s grand Romantic “Organ Symphony.” The composer told the commissioning body that it “will be terrifying, I warn you.” But do not be afraid; you’ll be safely guided to the blazing C Major chord that sets the last movement in motion.
Read More
Fabio Luisi leads the late-Romantic composer’s magnum opus, a towering oratorio that tackles no less a subject than the Bible’s Book of Revelation — the Apocalypse — a prophetic vision of the final violent destruction of the world. The DSO, soloists, massive chorus, and organ solos on the Lay Family Concert Organ depict the breaking of the seals, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the seven trumpets summoning souls to the Last Judgment, and, finally, the message of salvation and an ecstatic “Hallelujah.” Monumental, riveting, unforgettable! With English supertitles.
Read More
After Stalin died, Shostakovich, having suffered under the repressive Soviet regime, unleashed his fury
against the dictator in his Tenth Symphony — a titanic struggle pounded out in a code of savage pitches equivalent to his initials D-S-C-H (in German musical notation) — crushing the tyrant in the triumphant finale. Raising the curtain is Chopin’s rhapsodic Concerto No. 1, full of poetry and passion.
For intense emotions and radiant beauty, nothing can surpass Mahler’s Fifth. A movement marked “tempestuously. With great vehemence” stands alongside the achingly beautiful Adagietto — a gift to his beloved wife Alma — scored for strings and harp alone, a kind of “resting place” before the grand drama of the finale. The legendary conductor Herbert von Karajan called the Symphony “a transformative experience.” Coupled with the world premiere of Anna Clyne’s visceral and arresting Piano Concerto, this concert will have the emotional depth and range of the DSO on full display.
Read More
Fabio Luisi leads all musical forces (including former DSO artist-in-residence Matthias Goerne) in Brahms’s inspiring work. Gone are the rafter-shaking Last Judgment and punishment for sinners; instead, this Requiem’s centerpiece is the gentle “How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place,” comforting the bereaved and giving them the hope for eternal life. A balm for the soul. With English supertitles.
Read More
Millions of movie fans the world over have heard the grand fanfare from Also Sprach Zarathustra at
the beginning of Kubrick’s epic film 2001: A Space Odyssey. But if you’ve never heard it live, you’re in for a thrill — a multitude of brasses, the full orchestra, and the Lay Family Concert Organ, all hailing a primeval sunrise. To open the concert, Co-Concertmaster Nathan Olson solos in Britten’s fiendishly difficult Violin Concerto.
Rachmaninoff, wizard of the piano, meets Paganini, wizard of the violin. The result: the notoriously difficult Rhapsody — 24 variations on the 24th of Paganini’s Caprices — encompassing everything from knuckle-busting runs to the terrifying Day of Wrath medieval chant and the swoon-worthy 18th variation. Followed by Casella’s thrillingly assertive second symphony, this program will take its audience on a powerful musical journey.
Read More
Riveting. Virtuosic. Diabolical. Daredevil. Terrifying. Words that describe both Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto and Walton’s first symphony. The critic Harold Schonberg laid out the requirements for playing Prokofiev’s landmark work: “Steel fingers, steel biceps, steel triceps — a tonal steel trust.” (“…feats of prestidigitation from Denis Kozhukhin… ferocious energy… the octave leaps cast off as dizzyingly as any high-wire act” [BachTrack]). Meanwhile, Walton’s work premiered to critical acclaim for its commanding artistry and unflinching use of the power of the orchestra. Hang on to your seats for this one!
Read More