Seattle Philharmonic: Fantasy – A World with No Boundaries

• Adam Stern, conductor

Ludwig van Beethoven — Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43
Alexander Borodin — In the Steppes of Central Asia
Charles Gounod — Faust ("Ballet Music")
Maria Grenfell — Hinemoa
Johann Strauss II — On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Op. 314

Please note that due to a scheduling conflict, the originally programmed Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra by Frederick Delius has been replaced with Charles Gounod's "Ballet Music" from Faust.

A musical celebration of myths, legends, and fantasies. The program opens with the overture to Prometheus by Ludwig van Beethoven (his sole full-length ballet score), based on the Greek myth; and closes with the most beloved waltz of Johann Strauss, Jr., The Blue Danube, a magical conjuration of Austria's past, the peace and love that the river inspires, and even its mermaid inhabitants. Australian composer Maria Grenfell's orchestral fantasy Hinemoa, based on a Maori fairytale about young lovers united by music, is heard in its first U.S. performance. Alexander Borodin's popular "musical tableau" In the Steppes of Central Asia, an evocative vision of a desert caravan, precedes a Halloween-timed performance of the dance music (described by one commentator as "an orgiastic ballet") from Charles Gounod's opera Faust — a work appropriately charming and sensuous, as it accompanies the seductive enchantresses summoned forth for Faust's pleasure by the wily Méphistophélès.

About Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra

http://www.seattlephil.org/

About Adam Stern, conductor

http://www.adamsternconductor.com/