Boston Symphony Orchestra: Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, Ives March 6, 2009

BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

ALAN GILBERT, conductor
STEPHEN HOUGH, piano
TANGLEWOOD FESTIVAL CHORUS, JOHN OLIVER, conductor

SIBELIUS Night Ride and Sunrise, Op. 55
RACHMANINOFF Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
IVES Symphony No. 4

American conductor Alan Gilbert, who becomes music director of the New York Philharmonic at the start of the 2009-10 season, leads English pianist Stephen Hough in Rachmaninoff’s brilliant and poetic Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, whose theme is from Paganini’s famous 24th Caprice for violin. Receiving a rare BSO performance is Charles Ives’s epic Symphony No. 4, a work of great originality and a virtual autobiography of Ives’s musical experience, quoting hymn tunes, anthems, and popular song from “Turkey in the Straw” to “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Ives, who worked outside of the musical mainstream, composed this symphony primarily between 1909 and 1916 but it wasn’t premiered until 1965. Opening the program is Sibelius’s short but evocative tone poem Night Ride and Sunrise (1908), not played by the BSO since 1918.

1st Price $103 Orchestra
2nd Price $85 Orchestra, First Balcony
3rd Price $69 Orchestra, First Balcony, Second Balcony
4th Price $46 Orchestra, Second Balcony
5th Price $36 Orchestra, First Balcony
6th Price $32 Orchestra, First Balcony, Second Balcony
7th Price $29 Second Balcony

Official Website: www.bso.org