West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
The Annual Isaac Stern Memorial Concert
Part of: Carnegie Hall Live on WQXR
Performers
West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim, Music Director and Conductor
Miriam Manasherov, Viola
Kian Soltani, Cello
Program
R. STRAUSS Don Quixote
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5
Encores:
SAINT-SAËNS "The Swan" from The Carnival of the Animals (arr: Lahav Shani)
ELGAR "Nimrod" from Enigma Variations, Op. 36
WAGNER Prelude to Act I of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission. Please note that there will be no late seating before intermission.At a Glance
This concert presents orchestral works by two 19th-century symphonic masters at the height of their powers. Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony has become a universal emblem of struggle against adversity. Based on a chorale-like theme intoned at the beginning, it begins forlornly and moves toward optimism and affirmation. Many believe that it represents Tchaikovsky’s struggles with his homosexuality and fear of being outed. Nonetheless, the luscious horn solo in the slow movement, the charming waltz (based on a street singer’s song the composer heard in Florence), and the exultant major-key transformation of the chorale in the Finale depict a triumph over anxiety and trauma that Tchaikovsky was able to work out in his music, if not in his life. Strauss’s Don Quixote, a tone poem that spotlights solo viola and cello, is more mercurial and fantastical, as a portrait of Don Quixote should be. It has some of Strauss’s most soaring orchestral crescendos, but also his most delicate and subtle effects. Strauss meant it to be a companion piece to the far heavier and more aggressive Ein Heldenleben, in which Strauss himself is the hero.