MasterWorks V: Brahms' Fourth Symphony

Highlighting dramatic works rightfully enshrined in their popularity, music director finalist Jacob Joyce describes this concert as “exploring three different country-specific approaches to Romanticism.”

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade in A minor, Op. 33 opens the program, reflecting both his rising reputation and the influence of late-Romantic tradition in England. Commissioned at the recommendation of Edward Elgar, the work unfolds with a poetic structure, shaped in a way that feels like musical stanzas.

Featuring pianist Chaeyoung Park, Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, remains one of the most recognizable and popular concertos in the repertoire. Ever the perfectionist, Grieg took 40 years and seven full revisions to be satisfied with his work, eventually completing the concerto weeks before his death in 1907. Drawing on Norwegian folk influences, the work pairs bold, declarative gestures with moments of lyric intimacy, creating a constant interplay between soloist and orchestra.

Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 closes the program with a work often seen as both a monumental culmination of the Romantic-era symphonic form as well as a bittersweet departure (as it was the last symphony the composer would write). Its final movement, a chaconne on a theme from a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, is one of the only symphonic movements to explore this unusual, incessant dance form. Perhaps the definitive composer of the German Romantic canon, Brahms’ work transforms earlier musical forms and German musical traditions into a profound, grandiose work.

PROGRAM

Ballade - Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16 - Edvard Grieg

Intermission

Symphony No. 4 - Johannes Brahms

TICKETS

$20 / $35 / $45 / $60 / $70

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College Students (18+): FREE

Children 17 and under: FREE

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