Brahms: Symphony No. 3
Friday, February 17 2:00 PM
Saturday, February 18 8:00 PM
Sunday, February 19 2:00 PM
Herbert Blomstedt Conductor
Garrick Ohlsson Piano
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 25, K. 503
Brahms Symphony No. 3
The legendary Herbert Blomstedt turns 90 this season, returning to our podium to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his Philadelphia Orchestra debut. Continuing this season’s cycle of Brahms symphonies, he leads Brahms’s lush Third Symphony, hailed by a critic of the composer’s time as “a feast for the music lover and musician … artistically the most perfect.” The feuding partisans of Wagner and Brahms nearly came to blows at the premiere, but the work survived its boisterous birth, and is now a cornerstone of the great Germanic symphonic repertoire. The main theme of the third movement is Brahms at his brooding, moving best. Blomstedt is joined by another great friend of the Orchestra, the brilliant pianist Garrick Ohlsson. They’ll collaborate on Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25. It’s among the Austrian master’s finest creations, the great piano concertos he wrote in Vienna in the 1780s.