Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra

Brahms looks back while Strauss soars to unprecedented heights in this concert. Brahms envisioned a symphony built around a Bach theme, and in the final movement of his last symphony crafted an epic passacaglia (variations over a repeating bass line) on the master’s melody, building to a devastating emotional climax. Autumnal sentiments are also present in Strauss’s gorgeous Four Last Songs, sung here by Diana Damrau who, according to Opera News, can “do anything she wants with any note at any given time.”

Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique

Beethoven’s vitality and innovation are showcased by Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. Gardiner’s study of Beethoven’s original manuscripts reveal the rhythmic vigor, novel harmonies, and pure joy of the Symphony No. 1. The orchestra’s period instruments accentuate the color of Beethoven’s scoring and novel touches—such as the use of harp and basset horn—in his rarely heard ballet score, The Creatures of Prometheus.

Mahler Chamber Orchestra
Mitsuko Uchida, Piano and Director

Jörg Widmann’s chamber orchestra arrangement of his Choralquartett mesmerizes with daring textures and tonalities, framed by two Mozart piano concertos. It’s quite a magnificent frame because the pianist is Mitsuko Uchida, who plays and conducts from the keyboard. The Chicago Sun-Times has written of the legendary artist, “Uchida’s remarkable approach to the piano—with her ability to shift the weight and meaning of any line of music in the most brilliant and seamless ways—is a given.”

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

In Mahler’s final completed symphony, his career reached its apotheosis. All the hallmarks of his symphonies are present: massive scale, piercing emotion, rustic dance tunes, and stunning power. Fittingly, the ethereal finale serenely says farewell to life’s sorrows and ascends to the transcendent. The great conductor Herbert von Karajan said of the symphony, “It is music coming from another world, it is coming from eternity.”