The Philadelphia Orchestra

It’s a night of love, scandal, and drama. Bernstein’s Serenade, after Plato’s Symposium, explores the nature of love; its essence is captured in lyrical music laced with virtuosic solo violin passages that simultaneously eschew and hint at the West Side Story style. Sexual scandal drives the plot of Thomas Adès’s opera Powder Her Face with music—sultry tangos and uneasy waltzes—that evoke the glittery world of its protagonist, the Duchess of Argyll. Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1 lives in a gentler world of rich melody, technicolor orchestration, and drama.

The Philadelphia Orchestra

Ethereal and dramatic, Michel van der Aa’s concerto was specifically written for Janine Jansen, a violinist who meets the many challenges of this stunning music. Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2—a Philadelphia Orchestra specialty—has its own dramatic effects in the final movement, where the composer uncannily captures the sound of cascading Russian church bells. Its heart and soul, however, is the breathtaking third-movement Adagio that spins out a stream of beautiful melodies.

The Philadelphia Orchestra

Psalms soar heavenward on waves of irrepressible rhythm, and a keyboard masterpiece is painted in kaleidoscopic new colors. Commissioned by the Dean of England’s Chichester Cathedral, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms has the rhythmic zest of West Side Story, scored for treble voice, chorus, and an orchestra that features brass, two harps, strings, and percussion. Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition thrills from its opening Promenade to the famous “Great Gate of Kiev.”