Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2

After nearly being expelled from conservatory and enduring the disastrous premiere of his first symphony, Rachmaninoff didn’t write a note of music for three years.  But after trying out hypnosis therapy (“You will write a Concerto. . . You will work with great facility. . . It will be excellent”), Rachmaninoff composed his Piano Concerto No. 2.

Brahms Symphony No. 4

Ever the brutal self-critic, Brahms did not write his first symphony until the age of 42.  By the time he wrote his Symphony No. 4 in 1885, he had reached the pinnacle of his orchestral composition—the music he had always wanted to write.

Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11

Subtitled The Year 1905, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 uses many Russian folk, revolutionary, and prison songs to evoke the story of the massacre of hundreds of peasants protesting at the Tsar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.  The work is full of Shostakovich’s signature ambiguity, the result of his complicated relationship with the Soviet leadership.

Bartók's Duke Bluebeard’s Castle

Duke Bluebeard brings his new wife Judith home to his cold, dark castle, where she insists on opening the seven locked doors behind which Bluebeard hides his secrets.  Bartók, the father of ethnomusicology, wrote this one-act opera in his native language and used the speech’s natural rhythm to lead the musical expression.

Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto

Rachmaninoff was already an admired conductor and pianist when he wrote his Piano Concerto No. 3 to bring along on his first tour of the United States.  On that tour, he performed the concerto with the New York Philharmonic under their conductor Gustav Mahler.

Dvořák's Symphony No. 7

Considered at first to be a composer of popular music and not a great symphonist, it was Brahms who believed in Dvořák enough to set him up with an important publisher.  Written for the London Symphony, Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 is a personal catharsis and a masterpiece in tragedy.

Shostakovich's Symphony No. 6

Following the conventional success of his Symphony No. 5, written to pacify the Soviet leaders scandalized by his opera Lady Macbeth, Shostakovich composed the Symphony No. 6.  Characterized by its unusual Largo opening and scherzo-like finish, the work exhibits Mahler’s influence on Shostakovich’s sound worlds.