Boston Philharmonic Orchestra Benjamin Zander conducts Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, and Brahms with Stefan Jackiw, violin

Guide to the music with Benjamin Zander, 6:45pm.

Prokofiev wrote his Second Violin Concerto around the same time that he composed the ballet Romeo and Juliet. I keep inviting Stefan Jackiw back to play, because each time he offers new light on a work that we may have heard over and over. If you have never heard Stefan play, don’t miss this opportunity. The Brahms Fourth Symphony marks the climax of his entire compositional life, and it is for this reason that I have been drawn back to it so often—I believe this is my seventh performance in Boston, over the past 50 years. Mendelssohn’s Overture opens this concert for a very simple reason, the same reason that Brahms gave in expressing his admiration for the work. He said, “I would give all my compositions to have composed a piece as perfect as The Hebrides.”

—Benjamin Zander, conductor