Passionate music, passionate lives. This concert offers two dramatic works in which each composer poured out his heart and exposed his soul.
Tchaikovsky sought refuge in music when his life was in disarray. He entered into a disastrous marriage that only lasted six weeks. Nearly mad with passion, he poured his feelings into his Fourth Symphony, and the act of writing the music helped to rebalance his sanity. He said of the finale, “Rejoice in the happiness of others, and you can still live.”
Shchedrin’s colorful and flamboyant opera Carmen, with its eye-popping portrayal of on-the-street life filled with women who smoke, fight and drink, scandalized Parisian audiences but became wildly famous for its music and emotional intensity. Franz Welser-Möst offers a different look at this beloved work through a brilliant arrangement for string orchestra and percussion, created as a ballet score by Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin for his dancer wife, prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya. The intense passions of this famously tune-filled opera are revealed in unexpected detail across 13 movements that just beg you to dance.
Friday, January 21, 2022, at 8 p.m.
Saturday, January 22, 2022, at 8 p.m.
The Cleveland Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor
SHCHEDRIN Carmen-Ballet Suite
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 4
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