The Four Seasons

The Four Seasons is a model of “tone painting.” Its depictions of the out-of-doors are among the most recognizable in all of music. A master of horn writing, Strauss composed his brilliant concerto at the age of 18. Haydn’s Symphony No. 95 – in a rare minor key – swings between sunny and dark moods. Coquetos mixes classical and Andean folk traditions to create music the composer calls “flirtatious … bold and festive.”

Christopher Wilkins, conductor
Tallie Brunfelt, violin
Meghan Guegold, horn

DID YOU KNOW?

Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons is one of the earliest pieces of program music that has remained a fixture in the repertoire. (Source: The NPR Listener’s Encyclopedia of Classical Music)

Composer/pianist Gabriela Lena Frank is currently serving as Composer-in-Residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra and was named one of the 35 most significant women composers in history by The Washington Post in 2017. (Source: Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music)

Haydn’s Symphony No. 95 is one of 12 London Symphonies that he composed and which stand among the highest peaks of symphonic art. American musicologist Leonard Ratner called them “the culmination of a long period of growth in skill, fluency and fantasty.” (Source: The NPR Listener’s Encyclopedia of Classical Music)

Because of his father, Franz, a principal horn player, Richard Strauss became a great champion of the horn. His first Horn Concerto showed the influence of Schumann and Mendelssohn and remains a staple of the modern horn repertoire. (Source: Classic FM)