This program presents two popular works that were once met with controversy. The dispute over Brahms’s soaring, fiendishly difficult Violin Concerto had to do with the violin part—whether the concerto was written for the instrument or “against” it, and whether the gorgeous oboe solo in the slow movement was allowed to steal too much of the show. With Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, the argument was about politics—whether this epic, exciting work was straightforwardly inspirational, or whether it utilized musical “codes” and ironic gestures that were secretly anti-Stalin even though the rhetoric of the piece suggests the opposite. With its stark yet lyrical opening movement, its deliciously sardonic Allegretto, its hymn-like slow movement (the heart of the piece), and its thrilling, whirlwind finale, the work is now interpreted any number of ways—or simply enjoyed as one of the most gripping symphonies of the mid–20th century.

Tonight’s concert opens with a recent work: Jörg Widmann’s Con brio, an homage to Beethoven. The work was originally meant as a warm-up for all-Beethoven programs, but it has recently served as a curtain-opener for more varied concerts. In this case, it opens a program of works by two admirers of Beethoven. Brahms was the late–19th-century standard-bearer of the Haydn-Beethoven tradition; Shostakovich’s Fifth makes use of stark motifs as building blocks—a technique that Beethoven inaugurated—as well as an earthy, dance-like scherzo.