Omer Meir Wellber conducts Beethoven, Milch-Sheriff, and Tchaikovsky with Midori, violin
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA
Performing with the BSO at Symphony Hall for the first time since 2003, renowned violinist Midori joins Israeli conductor Omer Meir Wellber in his BSO debut for Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s beloved Violin Concerto. Israeli composer Ella Milch-Sheriff’s The Eternal Stranger for narrator and orchestra relates Ludwig van Beethoven’s difficulty in society due to his personality and deafness to the hostility and rejection experienced by refugees and other “strangers.” The funeral march from the Eroica Symphony and the overture from Beethoven’s opera about a political imprisonment remind us of the composer’s abiding universal humanity.
Omer Meir Wellber, conductor
Midori, violin
Eli Danker, narrator
TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto (35)
---- Intermission----
Ella MILCH-SHERIFF The Eternal Stranger, for narrator and orchestra (American premiere) Text in English (18)
BEETHOVEN Marcia funebre from Symphony No. 3, Eroica (15)
BEETHOVEN Leonore Overture No. 3 (14)
Performance Details
Jan 6, 2023, 1:30pm EST
Program Notes & Works
Violin Concerto in D
Tchaikovsky arranged the premiere of his Violin Concerto in far-away Boston—so that if it were a flop, he would not have to be present to hear it himself.
The Eternal Stranger, for narrator and orchestra
Ella Milch-Sheriff's The Eternal Stranger piece was inspired by a dream Beethoven had in which he imagined himself transplanted to Jerusalem.
Marcia funebre from Symphony No. 3, Eroica
The moving Funeral March musically mirrors the triumphs and struggles of a heroic figure inspired by Napoleon Bonaparte, although Beethoven later rejected that connection.
Leonore Overture No. 3
Beethoven's sole opera Leonore (later revised as Fidelio) revolves around the title character posing as man to save her husband, Florestan, from politically motivated imprisonment.
