Two musical giants converge in a program that touches on music of the night. In modern parlance, Mozart’s Gran Partita could be subtitled “My Big Fat Viennese Wind Symphony.” Its rich sonority stems from a palette of woodwinds with double bass, likely written as an evening’s entertainment – music as big as all outdoors! Bartók paints a...

Poetry, mystical texts, and an angelic altarpiece tie together this program of divine inspiration. Lyric tenor Josh Lovell returns home to Victoria to sing Finzi’s rhapsodic cantata and some of Strauss’s exquisite lieder in rich orchestral settings. Alongside the inspired ecstasy of Lizst’s tone poem and Hindemith’s imaginative symphonic portrait, their spiritual connections will be...

“Oh, how difficult it is to make anyone see and feel in music what we see and feel ourselves.” Early, temperamental reactions to his Violin Concerto must have stung Tchaikovsky, but it’s now a firm favourite of countless violinists, including Canada’s Blake Pouliot. A set of comic portraits of personality types, or temperaments, triggered Nielsen to recreate them...

The product of a summer’s holiday in 1883, Brahms’s Third Symphony has been described as being “…artistically the most perfect.” A single movement from Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 was the inspiration for Britten to present a musical posy: What the Wildflowers Tell Me. The poetry of Pablo Neruda moved Peter Lieberson to create a song cycle for his...

Ten years following the tragic death of his sister, opera star Joshua Hopkins showcases a powerful song cycle that honours her memory and comforts those who are in grief. Co-commissioned by the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Houston Grand Opera, composer Jake Heggie sets poetry by Margaret Atwood in a moving musical work that speaks...

Canadian pianist Angela Cheng returns with a concerto that Mozart lovingly wrote with his student, Barbara Ployer, in mind. Dvořák’s love for his homeland was expressed in his Symphony No. 7. Its London premiere in 1885 brought him great international acclaim. Maestra Naomi Woo returns to share an overture by Emilie Mayer, a pioneering and...