Mozart's youthful Divertimento in D, composed when he was just 16, begins the program with effervescent charm before Welser-Möst and the celebrated ensemble take on a 20th-century masterwork that caused a stir on its premiere: Arnold Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra, the Viennese composer's first large-scale twelve-tone work, a watershed moment in music history. Finally, one of Richard Strauss's most evocative tone poems brings the evening to a close: Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), an epic and engrossing musical portrait of a hero (often thought to be Strauss himself, though he denied it) through times of tumult, strife, and peace.

Photo © Roger Mastroianni

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