PROGRAM

Camille Saint-Saëns

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 3 in B minor , op. 61

Behind every great concerto for solo instrument there has almost always been a great virtuoso ready to inspire or actively collaborate with the composer. Such is the case with Camille Saint-Saëns’s Third Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, written in 1880 for the boundlessly talented Pablo de Sarasate, known for his interpretive magnetism, here put to the test with daring technical solutions bordering on incandescence. The exotic warmth of the Gypsy and Andalusian melodies, immediately recognizable on first hearing, consigned this page to the milestones of nineteenth-century violin concertos and helped elevate the French composer to the rank of “favorite of the gods.”

Anton Bruckner

Symphony No. 0 in D minor , “Die Nullte” WAB 100

The most powerful symphonist since Beethoven and before the advent of Mahler. This was Anton Bruckner, a unique case in the history of music: the son of an elementary school teacher in provincial Austria, known almost exclusively as an organist until his 50s, accepted as a composer in his 60s and consecrated to success only in the very last years of his life. Beneath the corpus of his Nine symphonies lie two mysterious creatures, symphonies “00” and “0,” by listening to which one can become fully acquainted with one of the most fascinating personalities of the musical 19th century. Unknown were the reasons that prompted Bruckner to repudiate this symphony, depriving it of progressive numbering and demoting it behind the First. But in any case, even Symphony “0,” conceived in 1869 and performed posthumously in 1924, already contains some essential aspects of Bruckner’s language of expressive force, sudden bursts and mighty perorations.