5th Symphony Concert

The night stretches darkly over the cemetery; the clock strikes midnight. The skeletons rise from their graves and perform an eerie dance. In his catchy symphonic poem Danse macabre, the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns set to music a poem by Henri Cazalis, in which Death, with his devil’s violin, lures the dead souls to dance. With this eerie work, which features a violin string tuned out of tune, Saint-Saëns left the audience at the premiere in a state of wonder and horror. Yet Saint-Saëns was a self-confessed admirer of Beethoven, particularly drawn to his symphonies. Yet even here, the unexpected lurks: From its very first chord—a dissonant seventh chord—Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 reveals the composer’s ambition to reimagine the symphonic genre entirely.

The Italian composer Nino Rota made a name for himself primarily through his more than 150 film scores. Yet he also left behind a wealth of concert music, symphonies, operas, and ballets. A particular highlight of his multifaceted oeuvre is the Divertimento Concertante from 1973, which features the double bass—a solo instrument rarely heard in this context. The work, which is imbued with humorous irony, exudes the entertaining lightness of 18th-century divertimenti while repeatedly offering unexpected and tongue-in-cheek twists.