Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

Obsession, madness, murder, and redemption are portrayed in the richly Romantic music—performed on period instruments—of Berlioz. His Symphonie fantastique is a phantasmagoric tale that depicts an opium overdose, nightmares of murder, a guillotine execution, and a terrifying Witches’ Sabbath. Berlioz called his rarely heard Lélio a “conclusion and complement” to the Symphonie fantastique. Lélio uses vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra—including two pianists performing on one instrument—to tell of the Symphonie hero’s awaking from the nightmare, his musings on art, and his ultimate triumph as a composer.

Boston Symphony Orchestra

This all-Strauss program of vocal splendor and orchestral thrills will leave you breathless. The tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra will be familiar to most for its opening “Sunrise,” the iconic passage used in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey—but that’s only one episode in a mysterious and marvelous work. From later in his career is Capriccio, his final opera, which opens with a passionate string sextet instead of a traditional overture and culminates in a rapturous monologue that ranks as one of Strauss’s finest soprano showpieces.

Les Violons du Roy
La Chapelle de Québec

Bach’s monumental Mass in B Minor is one of the uncontestable masterpieces of the choral literature. All of Bach’s hallmarks are present: intricately woven counterpoint; brilliant orchestral writing, like the joyous trumpet and drums punctuating the exuberant Gloria and Et resurrexit; profoundly expressive solo vocal passages; and an overall dramatic power that unfailingly uplifts the spirit.