A thrilling ride.

Rossini’s William Tell Overture is one of the most famous pieces of classical music ever written. Even if you don’t recognise the name, you’ve probably heard the music – especially the final section, which has appeared in countless films, TV shows, and cartoons (most famously a...

Elegant and lively

Gounod’s Ballet Music from Faust is a suite of seven dances added to his opera Faust in 1869 for its production at the Paris Opera. These movements, though not essential to the opera’s plot, showcase Gounod’s gift for melody, orchestral color, and dance-like elegance. The sui...

Light. Graceful. Joyful.

When Franz Schubert wrote his Fifth Symphony in 1816, he was just 19 years old. He was still working as a schoolteacher, composing in his spare time, and gathering friends to play through his music in small rooms and private homes. This symphony grew out of that world. I...

Franz Schubert's Symphony No 9 in C, 'Great', initially rejected for its length and complexity, finally premiered in 1839, showcasing Schubert's innovative composition with an iconic 8-bar horn theme. The symphony unfolds through a dynamic range of movements, from the intricate interplay of strin...

Eerie and playful

Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre is a thrilling and spooky orchestral piece that brings to life an old legend about Death leading a ghostly dance at midnight. Written in 1874, this tone poem is based on a French superstition that every year on Halloween night, Death appears a...

Pathos & Exhilaration

Dvořák’s Symphony No 7 is unique because it blends his national pride and love of Czech folk music with a more universal, serious symphonic style. It’s as if he’s speaking both as a Czech patriot and as a composer with a message for the world. Dvořák wrote this symphony du...

Recorded on Friday 1 March 2025 7:30pm

PROGRAM
Brahms Hungarian Dance No 1

MUSICIANS
Conductor Eivind Aadland
Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra

Federation Concert Hall, Nipaluna / Hobart

Symphony No 2 in D, Op 73
Allegro ma non troppo
Adagio ma non troppo
Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino)
Allegro con spirito
Composed by Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
43 minutes

Johannes Brahms composed his Symphony No 2 in D during the summer of 1877, in the peaceful surroundings of Pörtschac...

Flirty, fiery, a little reckless…

Don Juan is an exciting, dramatic piece of music written by Richard Strauss in 1888, when he was just 24 years old. It’s a tone poem (a type of orchestral music that tells a story purely through instruments) based on the story of Don Juan, one of the most famous...

A hypnotic slow burn

This is perhaps one of the most instantly recognisable pieces in classical music. You might have heard it anywhere from Torvill and Dean skating to it at the 1984 Winter Olympics, to Baz Luhrman’s 2001 film Moulin Rouge, or even used to comedic effect on Saturday Night Live....

Chief Conductor and Artistic Director, Eiviand Aadland, joins the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra for Beethoven's iconic fifth symphony.

Beethoven’s Fifth is more than a piece of music – it’s a cultural phenomenon. And while its dramatic opening is the most recognisable hook in all orchestral music...

From its opening horn fanfare to ecstatic, triumphant close, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony is one of the most brilliant and colourful of all symphonies. Dedicated to Tchaikovsky’s key supporter and patron, Nadezhda von Meck, the Fourth spirals through dreaminess, melancholy and sweetness.

Eivind...

Tchaikovsky’s Fifth is one of the most luscious of symphonies. It takes hold of the listener from the very first notes – a soft, slow phrase emanating from the deepest registers of the clarinet – and builds to climaxes of massive proportions. Shaping this towering symphony is Eivind Aadland, Chie...

Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Chief Conductor and Artistic Director, Eivind Aadland, perform Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 6, the 'Pathetique'. The work opens in enigmatic fashion – barely audible sustained bass notes and a slow and halting bassoon theme – which perhaps foreshadows the work’s trag...

Mendelssohn’s final concerto. His heart’s last jewel.

Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor was a success from its premiere, despite features that would have made it quite unconventional in its day. Instead of a full orchestral introduction before the entrance of the soloist, the violinist j...

The sound of Italy.

Felix Mendelssohn was an avid traveller. He spent nine months or so in Italy in 1830-31 where he jotted down ideas that would make their way into his Symphony No. 4, ‘Italian’. Writing to his sister, Fanny, from Rome in February 1831, he commented, ‘I have once more begun to ...