The Verbier Festival Orchestra is lead by its Music Director Charles Dutoit in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5: a tragic work famous for its opening Andante on the clarinet and the lightness of its lyric waltz.

Resolutely inspired by the esthetic, tonality, and orchestration of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Dvorák’s Ninth is an ode to the United States, which the Czech composer visited at the end of the 19th century. Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and then premiered by the same orchestra in 1893, the New World Symphony quickly became one of the most celebrated orchestral works of the modern Western classical canon. Neeme Järvi leads the young musicians of the Verbier Festival Orchestra in a performance of this groundbreaking symphony.

Photo: © Nicolas Brodard