Beethoven’s Pastoral and Gil Shaham

In the second weekend of our Nature in Music Festival, our musical tour takes us into the countryside. Composers have often found inspiration in nature and one of the great outdoor musical portraits is Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony, which depicts an idyllic day in the countryside. Beethoven gives us one of his most buoyant melodies in the first movement, then takes us along a babbling brook, recreates bird songs, depicts a rollicking peasant dance and the fright of a thunderstorm before ending the work with the calm of a Shepherd’s Song of Thanksgiving. GRAMMY-winning soloist Gil Shaham opens the program with Antonín Dvořák’s seldom-played Violin Concerto, a model of the composer’s Slavic period and a work of subtle sensuality.