In Xian’s sophomore season as music director, she starts the Symphonic Series with a dose of Romantic-era firepower in Bruch and Berlioz. The program opens with brilliant soloist James Ehnes joining the orchestra for Bruch’s soaring First Violin Concerto, famed for its hypnotic and tender adagio. Bruch provided no cadenzas for any of the movements, believing the concerto’s “virtuosity” was inherent in its shimmering beauty. Then, the ultimate orchestral fever dream: Berlioz’s darkly autobiographical Symphonie fantastique. Originally titled Episode in the Life of an Artist, its dynamic spectrum of moods and adventurous orchestration was unprecedented at the time. Berlioz said he composed it in “a mental boil” and it’s filled with unforgettable moments, including our first reference to this season’s “nature” theme in the third movement’s Scene in the country.
Feel the full might of the orchestra as Music Director Xian Zhang brings two monumental pieces from the classical canon to the Benaroya Hall stage. Rising piano superstar Tony Siqi Yun makes his Seattle Symphony debut with one of the most iconic piano concertos ever composed, Tchaikovsky’s First. This beloved masterpiece is a grand display of Romantic virtuosity that draws on Ukrainian, French and Russian folk and popular song. Then, the orchestra tackles Strauss’ still-ubiquitous, landmark tone poem, Also sprach Zarathustra. Based on Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical work of the same name, it pushed the boundaries of music and is indelibly associated with Stanley Kubrick’s science fiction film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Music Director Xian Zhang conducts a celebration of scintillating Spanish and South American dance rhythms. Édouard Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole, featuring Concertmaster Noah Geller as the soloist, explores flamenco and other dance motifs of the Iberian Peninsula. Originally a ballet, but heard here as a suite, Alberto Ginastera’s Four Dances from Estancia utilizes sophisticated folk rhythms to evoke various aspects of life in the Argentinian countryside. Lastly, we hear from Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, whose brief and only visit to southern Spain during a naval tour captivated his senses; the vibrant music he heard on the streets of Andalucía inspired his Capriccio espagnole.
Music Director Xian Zhang opens her three-week Nature in Music Festival with musical visions of nature, from the literal to the symbolic. Vaughan Williams’ serene Lark Ascending attempts to capture the feeling of a bird soaring on the wind and features Associate Concertmaster Helen Kim on solo violin. Next come Xian’s own selections from Grieg’s bucolic Peer Gynt, which begins with the most famous of all musical sunrises, Morning Mood. Webern’s Im Sommerwind (In the Summer Wind) reveals the composer at his most exultant and lush. Then, it’s on to Scriabin’s exotic Poem of Ecstasy, an adventure in luxuriant harmonies.
Tragedy, despair, terror and violence come to a triumphant conclusion in Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony, written in the wake of Stalin’s death after it became clear that a more liberal era was dawning in the Soviet Union. It is widely considered to be an indictment of Stalin’s dictatorship and is one of the composer’s most expressive and inventive works, unencumbered by his existential fear of government retribution. Conductor David Afkham returns to our stage for this exciting program, which also features Seattle audience favorite Steven Osborne performing Lutosławski’s Piano Concerto, marked by its capricious, light-infused sections and beloved by pianists due to the composer’s deep understanding of the piano’s solo voice against the orchestra. Opening the program is Kaija Saariaho’s twinkling, airy Lumière et Pésanteur (Light and Gravity).
Conductor Nicholas Carter reunites with the orchestra to conduct Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, nicknamed “The Heavenly Life” and inspired by a child’s version of the delights of heaven, full of dancing and playing, good music and food. Australian composer Brett Dean's arrangement of a song cycle by Debussy, Forgotten Songs, is a Seattle Symphony premiere, and uses poignant texts by French visionary poet Paul Verlaine. The densely layered, emotional words are complemented by the composer's trademark impressionistic lightness, and feature guest soprano Patricia Westley, who also sings in the last movement of the Mahler. Strauss' ecstatic Dreaming by the Fireside takes its cue from another “dream,” the music evoking a dreamer's love and yearning for her faraway husband.
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