Earlier this season, the Metropolitan Opera presented the US premiere of American composer Nico Muhly’s sensational opera Marnie, based on Winston Graham’s novel and Alfred Hitchcock’s film. A few weeks before, The Philadelphia Orchestra offered the world premiere of its companion orchestral suite, Liar, which now comes to Carnegie Hall.

Already as a child, Felix Mendelssohn was recognized as someone with extraordinary gifts. At age 22, he unveiled his innovative Piano Concerto No. 1 during a benefit concert in Munich, which he conducted and performed as soloist. All went splendidly, as he reported to his parents: The event was “more brilliant and more fun than I had expected,” and the concerto “met with a long and vivid reception.”

Although Franz Schubert completed seven symphonies, and left others unfinished, he seems to have acknowledged just one as a fully mature work. The “Great” C-Major Symphony was a majestically bold statement from the 28-year-old composer, written in the shadow of Beethoven’s recent Ninth Symphony, and a work that displayed Schubert’s highest aspirations. Although it was not performed in public during his lifetime, the symphony was discovered by Robert Schumann on a visit to Vienna, and he gave it to Mendelssohn, who conducted the belated premiere in 1839.