Egon Schiele, Agonie (Der Todeskampf) / Agony (The Death Struggle) (1912) |
MAHLER SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2011 . 8:00 pm Mahler Symphony No. 6 The Mercury Orchestra presents Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 in A minor (“Tragic”), a relentlessly tempestuous yet poignantly beautiful orchestral tour de force. Sanders Theatre, Harvard University Note: This performance has already taken place. Read about the composer and piece
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Konstantin Somov, Harlequin and Death (1907) |
STRAVINSKY AND BERLIOZ SATURDAY, JULY 17, 2010 . 8:00 pm Stravinsky Petrushka (1911) The Mercury Orchestra presents two highly colorful and evocative showpieces for symphony orchestra: Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Stravinsky’s score for the ballet Petrushka, commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes, uses a tapestry of Russian folk tunes to conjure the brilliant sights and sounds of a local carnival where puppets seem to possess real lives of their own. Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, subtitled “An Episode in the Life of an Artist,” has held audiences under its spell for almost two hundred years, with its vivid exploration of a young man’s obsessive dreams and hallucinations of his beloved. Renowned as one of the cornerstones of Romantic music, the work utilizes the full resources of the symphony orchestra to create a gripping narrative of love, loss, and the macabre. Sanders Theatre, Harvard University Note: This performance has already taken place. |
Gustav Klimt, Die Musik (1895) |
MAHLER AND STRAUSS SATURDAY, JULY 18, 2009 . 8:00 pm R. Strauss Don Juan The Mercury Orchestra presents two of the most beautiful and exhilarating works of the Romantic era: Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony and Richard Strauss’s Don Juan. Where his previous symphonies were strongly tied to words of songs, Gustav Mahler sought to break away from a “program” with his Fifth Symphony, preferring to let the music speak for itself. The resulting work is powerful, poignant, brilliant, and immediate, and it is considered by many to represent Mahler’s finest orchestration. With the exception of the well-known, exquisitely tender Adagietto movement, which is scored for harp and strings, Mahler uses a large orchestra to deliver boldness, anguish, passion, and intimacy in this masterwork. Richard Strauss’s tone poem Don Juan is a virtuosic tour-de-force for orchestra, which evocatively illustrates Don Juan’s incessant quest for new passion. These two contrasting dramatic works have thrilled both new and seasoned concertgoers for over 100 years; the Mercury Orchestra invites you to experience them both in an exciting live performance. Sanders Theatre, Harvard University Note: This performance has already taken place. Read about composers and pieces |
Claude Monet, Shadows on the Sea (1882) |
RAVEL AND DEBUSSY SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2008 . 8:00 pm Ravel La valse (The Waltz) Albert Kim, piano The Mercury Orchestra, established in 2008, opens its first concert with a colorful program of French impressionist music for symphony orchestra. Maurice Ravel’s witty, nostalgic, lyrical, and sometimes macabre deconstruction of the classical Viennese waltz (La valse) offers a sharp contrast to his sprightly and sublime Piano Concerto in G Major. Claude Debussy’s symphonic portrait La mer evokes three distinct personalities of the sea: De l'aube à midi sur la mer (From dawn until noon on the sea); Jeux de vagues (Play of the waves); Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of wind and sea). Sanders Theatre, Harvard University Note: This performance has already taken place. |
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