Thu 2/21 @ 7:30PM
Fri 2/22 @ 8PM
Sat 2/23 @ 8PM
There’s just never a bad time to program a Beethoven Symphony. All nine are popular with symphony patrons, with No. 3, No 5 and No. 9 familiar to many who aren’t even especially classical music lovers. But Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”), written in 1808, is often performed as well, with its direct references to nature and a visit to the country, including flowing water, folk dancing and a thunderstorm. It too is widely know due to parts of it being used in the 1940 Walt Disney film Fantasia.
It comprises one half of the Cleveland Orchestra’s concert program this week. The other half is filled by another symphony inspired by nature, Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 (“Scottish”), composed between 1829 and 1842, and initially inspired by a trip to an abandoned, crumbling palace in Edinburgh.
Herbert Blomstedt conducts the orchestra in three performances. Tickets are $31-$161.
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106