Handel’s Messiah

However you like your Messiah - big or intimate, modern or period, authentic or interpreted - when you listen you become part of an almost 300-year tradition of what may be classical music's most beloved masterpiece.

Britten's War Requiem

Benjamin Britten's War Requiem was an anguished cry for peace in the midst of the Cold War. Its combination of the sacred and the secular sends a message that is as powerful today as it was in 1962.

Copland's Symphonic Ode

Copland's Symphonic Ode was booed at its first performances, but the qualities that made it a failure would pave the way for his later successes.

Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra

Witold Lutosławski was one of the great cultural figures of 20th century Poland, and his Concerto for Orchestra - based on a simple folk tune - was one of his first great successes; perhaps because his personal history mirrored that of his native land.

Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Felix Mendelssohn's music to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a sparkling accompaniment to one of the most magical plays ever written. And he began it when he was just 17!

Mahler's Symphony No. 9

Mahler's Symphony No. 9 could be seen as his farewell statement, but he actually began work on a 10th as soon as he finished the 9th. Despite his fascination with death and the hereafter, Mahler always chose to embrace life, and in this last completed symphony, he managed to express just how thin the line between them actually is.

Schubert's Symphony No. 3

Schubert’s Third Symphony is a concise, clearly plotted work, characterized by prominent use of the clarinet, that recalls the scale, and something of the flavor, of Haydn. Schubert was just eighteen when he composed the piece, during a celebratory period in Vienna prompted by the pacifying effect of the Congress of Vienna.

Sibelius's Symphony No. 2

At the close of the nineteenth century, Finnish natives were part of a cultural renaissance inspired by their opposition to the Russians occupying their country. Jean Sibelius was swept up in this nationalistic fervor, and composed several patriotic tone poems, including Finlandia. Symphony No. 2 is the result of his fusing together fragments and sketches originally intended for four separate tone poems.

Bartok's "The Wooden Prince"

The Budapest Opera approached Bartók in March 1913 to suggest that he consider writing a ballet. Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes had visited Budapest in 1912, performing avant-garde works, including Stravinsky’s Firebird, that were received with great enthusiasm—an enthusiasm that Bartók had not shared, since he was in the back-country collecting folk songs. A year later, he commenced work on The Wooden Prince, finally completing the orchestration in January 1917.

Beethoven's "Missa solemnis"

While composing his Missa solemnis, Beethoven looked to the past.  He obtained a copy of the score to J.S. Bach’s unpublished B Minor Mass, and studied the sacred music of C.P.E. Bach. After countless sketches and spiritual preparation, Beethoven composed this work for large orchestra and chorus, dedicating more time to it than any other of his works. Written simultaneously with the Symphony No. 9, Missa solemnis is considered one of the most significant mass settings in classical music.

Dvořák's "New World"

In June 1891, Antonín Dvořák was invited to direct the newly-formed National Conservatory in New York City.  Leaving four of their six children behind in Bohemia, Dvořák and his wife made their new home on East 17^th Street in cacophonous Manhattan, just a few blocks from the new school.  Through his diverse student body and the advent of the polyrhythmic ragtime, Dvořák first encountered African American and Native American music.  He was particularly taken with those cultures’ spirituals. He borrowed musical elements from diverse popular sources for many of his compositions, including his Symphony No. 9, From the New World. 

Nielsen's Symphony No. 5

Drawing on themes of contrast and opposition and likely influenced by the aftermath of World War I, Nielsen’s Symphony No. 5 uses a nontraditional two movement structure. The first movement is a battle between the orchestra and a renegade snare drummer, silenced by the full forces of the orchestra in the final bars. Movement two takes dramatic and unexpected turns before resolving in triumphant affirmation.

Mahler's Symphony No. 9

During a period of both personal tragedy and momentous achievement, the Ninth Symphony is the last score Mahler completed. Some part of him would have wanted it so. With Beethoven’s Ninth and Bruckner’s unfinished Ninth in mind, he entertained a deep-rooted superstition about symphonies and the number nine. But for all the annihilating poignancy [with] which this symphony ends, Mahler cannot have meant it as a farewell. Within days of completing it, he plunged into composing a Tenth, which he never finished before his death in 1911.

Strauss' Oboe Concerto

The technical prowess required and the sublime melody of Strauss’ Oboe Concerto causes a stir among oboists. During occupation of his village in World War II, an elderly and impoverished Strauss met an American soldier and oboist, who suggested he write it. His answer was an emphatic “NO,” but he did complete a last bundle of masterpieces, of which the Oboe Concerto is one.

Berlioz's Te Deum

Napoléon III’s Exposition Universelle of 1855 in Paris saw the premiere of this daring, grandiose work, for the opening of the Church of Saint-Eustache. The new organ, a wonder of engineering at the time, was a fitting pillar of what Berlioz described as a “colossal” and “Babylonian” performance with nearly one thousand singers and instrumentalists.

Mozart’s Divertimento in D major

Mozart’s Divertimento in D major, written when he was 16, is one of the most popular of his works in this style. The finale uses counterpoint in a way that surprised his audiences and presaged the innovative delights of his later work. The Serenade No. 6, written four years later, was likely composed for dancing at parties during the annual Carnival celebrations in Salzburg.

Grieg's "Peer Gynt"

Scandinavian classic, Peer Gynt, written by Henrik Ibsen, may be one of the world’s first great modern psycho dramas as it moves seamlessly across time and space and between fantasy and reality. Edvard Grieg’s incidental music for Peer Gynt captures its many moods and has become some of the most popular classical music of all time.