Schubert's Symphony No. 5

At 17, Schubert composed his art song masterpiece Gretchen am Spinnrade. The following year, he composed more than 145 more, including Erlkönig. By the time he reached age 19, in 1816, he had already composed a treasure trove of art songs and instrumental sonatas in addition to his first four symphonies. Following a series of personal setbacks, including receiving no response after sending Goethe a packet of songs based on his poems, Schubert composed his Fifth Symphony. Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, one of only two he wrote in a minor key, was one of Schubert’s favorites, and is echoed in the fiery minuet movement.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 1

Arriving in Vienna in 1792, with a stack of music he’d composed in Bonn, young Beethoven settled down to study composition with Josef Haydn. By the time he premiered his first symphony in 1800, he had already published an impressive catalogue, including 10 piano sonatas, two cello sonatas, three violin sonatas, five string trios, and six string quartets. Symphony No. 1 opens on a dissonant chord and includes featured wind solos and a third movement scherzo, all reflecting  a musical personality that foreshadows Beethoven’s impending departure from his Classical education

Beethoven's Symphony No. 4

In summer 1806, Beethoven had to give up his summer vacation home in order to pay off his and his family’s debts.  Despite the financial turmoil, the year was an extraordinarily productive one for him: the composer wrote many of his great works in that year, including the Razumovsky string quartets, the revision of what became Fidelio (including the Leonore Overture No. 3), the Fourth Piano Concerto, and the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies.  The Fourth Symphony, often overshadowed by the Third and the Fifth, is perhaps his least frequently performed symphony.  The work is a return to the grace and relative simplicity of Beethoven’s earlier classical style.  At the middle of the second movement stands an episode that distinguished musical analyst Donald Francis Tovey called “one of the most imaginative passages anywhere in Beethoven.”

Episode 14: Prokofiev's Scenes from Romeo and Juliet

Following multiple failed agreements with various ballet companies (including the Bolshoi, which declared the music impossible to dance to), Sergei Prokofiev reduced what would eventually become his most popular ballet to three orchestral suites.  Romeo and Juliet “is a great lyrical symphonic epic, one in which Prokofiev used his unique gift for beautiful melody to give life to all the characters,” says Michael Tilson Thomas.  Prokofiev’s work  uses character and emotional motifs to capture the dramatic action in Shakespeare’s classic love story.

John Adams' "Harmonielehre"

After a year-long writer’s block and amid feelings of uncertainty about how contemporary music would evolve, composer John Adams had a dream.  He dreamt that as he was driving across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and looking at the water, an oil tanker took off into the sky like a rocket ship.  He woke up the next day, and like a man possessed, began work on Harmonielehre.  The third movement was inspired by a second dream, in which Adams’ daughter  “rides perched on the shoulder of the Medieval mystic, Meister Eckhardt, as they hover among the heavenly bodies like figures painted on the high ceilings of old cathedrals,” Adams writes.  He veered off from many of his contemporaries in this work by moving from minimalism back to a more Romantic harmonic language. He viewed Harmonielehre, which shares a title with Arnold Schoenberg’s seminal text on harmony (it translates as “book of harmony”), as a way to teach himself not just about harmony in music, but in life as well.

John Adams's "El Niño"

After witnessing the whirling emotions of his wife’s pregnancy, the pain of labor, and their culmination in the birth of his daughter, John Adams was inspired to re-tell the story of the most famous birth of all: the birth of Jesus. Narrated by a woman, El Niño is a Nativity story you won’t find in the Bible. Commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony in 2000, the oratorio uses texts drawn from English, Spanish and Latin sources, ranging from mystic and author Hildegard von Bingen to the pioneering Mexican poet and novelist Rosario Castellanos.

Strauss’ 'Ein Heldenleben'

Richard Strauss’ tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) is regarded by many as a musical self-portrait. Its vivid sketches of the characters and events depict the hero himself, in a soaring E flat-major horn solo; his adversaries, played by stumbling tubas; and, in what is generally thought to be a portrait of Strauss’ opera diva wife, Pauline, a violin solo that runs from loving and playful to emotional and nagging. Written after winning a ten-year contract with the Berlin Court Opera, Strauss’ sky-high spirits are evident in this adventure of a work.