Leila Josefowicz Returns

In between The Firebird and The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky completed yet another work for ballet, Petrushka, quoting Russian folk songs and a French ditty amid original melodies, shimmering orchestral textures and masterful instrumentation. In this lively work, a flute-playing showman charms three puppets to life — among them, the awkward clown Petrushka. The traditional folk music of southern Poland pervades Szymanowski’s Second Violin Concerto, performed by expressively dazzling violinist Leila Josefowicz. Jonathan Stockhammer conducts the program, which opens with Unsuk Chin’s Rocaná (Room of Light), a musical “translation” of light phenomena, meant to depict the behavior of beams of light: their distortion, refraction, reflections and undulations.