Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra

A heroic overture and sublime concerto set the stage for an intense symphony. Weber uses several quotes from his opera in a thrilling curtain raiser, while Mozart’s concerto delights with gorgeous melodies. Shostakovich’s symphony reflects on his precarious life in Stalin’s Soviet Union with music that is viscerally powerful. Both men are portrayed in the symphony: the former in a motif that cryptically spelled out initials of his name and the latter in the savage second movement. Ultimately, there is victory as Shostakovich outlived the dictator and dances in a triumphant finale.

San Francisco Symphony

A gathering of superstar musicians, each with a long-standing affinity for the music, make this an electrifying concert. Michael Tilson Thomas had a longtime working relationship with Stravinsky, while Gautier Capuçon has performed and recorded Saint-Saëns’s daredevil Cello Concerto No. 1 to great acclaim. There’s also the New York premiere of Tilson Thomas’s Lope and Stravinsky’s spectacular The Firebird, which brings the concert to a rousing conclusion.

Boston Symphony Orchestra

A Carnegie Hall connection runs through this concert. Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F—commissioned by Walter Damrosch (the man who inspired Andrew Carnegie to build the Hall)—is an exuberant masterpiece laced with jazz, ragtime, and Tin Pan Alley accents. Rachmaninoff’s symphony, a quintessentially Russian work with soulful melodies and invigorating rhythmic energy, had its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall. To this day, new works continue to be premiered at the Hall, this time one by the iconoclastic HK Gruber.