Augustin Hadelich, “one of the outstanding violinists of his generation” (New York Times), returns to Orchestra Hall to perform Paganini’s First Violin Concerto. Paganini, himself a wizard of the violin, began composing when he could not find material challenging enough to play; his First Violin ...
“Je voudrais voir…”, repeats Shéhérazade. “I would like to see…” This refrain sets the tone for Ravel’s Shéhérazade, named for the protagonist of 101 Arabian Nights — a woman who employs her imagination as a means of escape. With text based on three poems by his friend Tristan Klingsor, this song...
It’s a pairing as natural as wine and cheese: contemporaries Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. In this program Debussy’s La Mer demonstrates that the Impressionism movement was not limited to paintings; his soft musical brushstrokes create sketches of the sea. Ravel’s jazz-infused Piano Concerto ...
“No one can love the country as much as I do,” insisted Beethoven. “For surely woods, trees, and rocks produce the echo which man desires to hear.” The composer, who loved a walk outdoors to escape city life, provided us a clear path through his Pastoral symphony; his scenes recall a visit to the...
Celebrate Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th birthday with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra! Learn more about this iconic composer and listen to some of his most famous orchestral works.
Megawatt pianist André Watts takes the stage for the DSO’s annual celebration of African-American contributions to classical music, conducted by former DSO Resident Conductor Thomas Wilkins. Watts, a recipient of the National Medal of Arts, performs Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto, so nickna...
“Everything I have written to date, and which you have, unfortunately, printed, can be destroyed,” declared composer Carl Orff to his publisher following the successful premiere of Carmina Burana. Orff based Carmina on 24 poems — but a far cry from love sonnets, these verses deal in lust, gamblin...
Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony, “From the New World,” blends the traditional folk sounds of the composer’s Czech homeland with melodies discovered in African-American and Native American music — the heartbeat of Dvořák’s “new world,” the United States. A world premiere commission by James Lee III direct...
Wise pianists fear Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, one of the most fiendishly difficult pieces ever composed for piano. Alexander Gavrylyuk, “as vivid and characterful as he is dextrous” (Gramophone), is suited to summon Rachmaninoff’s fireworks. “The Poem of Ecstasy” by Scriabin is a metaph...
Written in a fever of productivity at the height of his career, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 exudes the richness and majesty of Mozart at his best. The dreamy second movement, andante (“slow”), is most familiar, having been borrowed by the film Elvira Madigan, songwriter Neil Diamond and more. ...
Four of Mozart’s five violin concertos, including the fourth, were written when the composer was a mere 19 years old, and closely resemble Baroque pieces, as they preceded Mozart’s mature style heard in his later concertos for the piano. Karen Gomyo, a violinist “of rare musical command, vitality...
It requires a dynamic concerto to showcase the rare talent of violin legend Joshua Bell. Enter Dvořák’s Violin Concerto: from its dramatic opening to the explosive finale, this showpiece smolders under Bell’s bow. Music Director Laureate Leonard Slatkin also conducts two of Dvořák’s spirited Slav...
Music Director Laureate Leonard Slatkin leads the DSO through a program of three favorites, beginning with Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments, which the composer penned as part of a tribute to the late Claude Debussy. (“The musicians of my generation and I myself owe the most to Debussy,...
Five quiet drum beats. In 1806, a concerto simply did not begin this way — but as with so many elements of music, Beethoven would challenge the status quo. Beethoven’s only violin concerto wraps rhythm in melody, shows off the potential of the instrument and delights in the technique of the perfo...
DSO Principal Cello Wei Yu is featured in Dvorák's lush and sweeping concerto. Conductor Matthias Pintscher, known for his command of contemporary music and as a composer, leads Felix Mendelssohn's Fourth Symphony ("Italian") and Stravinsky's sensuous "Song of the Nightingale."
