November 20, 2016 Wolfgang Mozart (1756 – 1791): Don Giovanni Overture Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni has had an immense impact on Western culture—artists, philosophers, and musicians have revered the work for its complexity, its beauty, indeed, for its perfection. Don Giovanni premiered in Prague in 1787, the result
October 23, 2016 Gioachino Rossini (1792 – 1868): La gazza ladra (overture) Philharmonia Northwest begins its 41st season quite literally with a drumroll—the opening of Rossini’s overture to La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie). This was one of four (!) operas by Rossini that premiered in 1817, and
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904): Nocturne in B Major, Op. 40 Antonín Dvořák’s Nocturne, Op. 40, began its life as the middle section of a single-movement string quartet written early in his career. Although Dvořák eventually discarded the quartet, he kept the haunting central section, which he had originally