2nd Subscription Concert

ABOUT THE CONCERT

The second subscription concert presents three works by major figures of 19th- and 20th-century music. The Czech National Symphony Orchestra will be led by conductor Steven Mercurio, with soprano Golda Zahra appearing as the soloist.

The evening opens with Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, an evocative work for soprano and orchestra set to a text by American writer and journalist James Agee, capturing a childhood memory of a summer evening. It will be followed by Tchaikovsky’s dramatic symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini, inspired by the tragic story of ill-fated love from the fifth canto of Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. The evening closes with Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 in C minor.

The work, which occupied the composer for many years, stands out for its rich melodies, tension and unmistakable Brahmsian style.

PERFORMERS

Czech National Symphony Orchestra
Steven Mercurio – conductor
Golda Zahra – soprano

PROGRAMME

Samuel Barber
Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Francesca da Rimini, symphonic poem, Op. 32

Johannes Brahms
Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68