Composed to express his gratitude upon receiving an honorary degree despite not attending university, a mischievous Brahms penned the tongue‐in‐cheek Academic Festival Overture, which features boisterous student drinking songs as well as folk songs turned songs of student protest. With the energy of the music and the expansive orchestration, the piece tends to lean more into the celebratory side of the title than the scholarly. Reinecke’s Concerto in E minor spotlights the harp in a virtuosic display of shimmering arpeggios and rhythmic optimism, with its various movements rich with influence from Early Romantic composers (such as Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Schumann). Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, which closes the program, is forcedly optimistic and tonal. It proved career and lifesaving for the under-fire Shostakovich because of its patriotic nature and its glorification of Stalin’s Soviet regime.

JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Madeline Olson, harp

BRAHMS  Academic Festival Overture
REINECKE  Harp Concerto in E minor
SHOSTAKOVICH  Symphony No. 5 in D minor