The “awakening of cheerful feelings upon arriving in the country.” That might describe the drive into the Wood River Valley, but it’s also the label Beethoven applied to the first movement of his sixth symphony! In this explicitly programmatic work, Beethoven references sounds heard in nature, including birdcalls, a burbling brook, a terrifying summer thunderstorm, and a shepherd’s song. Throughout, one can easily imagine the composer strolling through his beloved Austrian countryside, enjoying a respite from bustling Vienna. The program opens with Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, a piece which Beethoven decided was too grand to be anything else but self-sufficient.

Hailed by The Times as “without question the most astounding pianist of our age,” Daniil Trifonov won a Grammy Award in 2018, was Musical America’s 2019 Artist of the Year, and has seven albums in Billboard’s Top classical Album charts. After performing Pictures at an Exhibition in the Festival’s virtual season in 2020, Trifonov will appear in person to play Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1, a work conceived amidst the pressure the composer felt in living up to the expectations of his mentor, Robert Schumann. A vision from a dream inspired Brahms to transform a modest work for two solo pianos into a piano concerto, pairing the soloist and orchestra as equal partners. The result is a quintessential Brahms masterpiece, full of complexity and ambition, and following the model of great concertos by Beethoven and Mozart.

Here come three pieces you may not have heard but will almost certainly love. Spanish composer Manual De Falla wrote the score to a comedic ballet called The Three-Cornered Hat commissioned by Serge Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes. The 12-minute suite was inspired by both Andalusian folk music and traditional flamenco rhythms. Andrew McCandless, the Festival’s Principal Trumpet, then plays Canadian composer John Estacio’s trumpet concerto, which has been performed by over 20 Canadian orchestras. The program concludes with José Pablo Moncayo’s foot-stomping Huapango, a piece that, over time, came to be known as Mexico’s unofficial national anthem.

Unlike many great symphonies, Elgar’s first achieved fame nearly instantly—it was performed over 80 times in Europe and North America in its first year. Its popularity has endured, with over 10 recordings released in the first decade of the 21st century. It’s easy to see why. As the Evening Standard wrote in 1908: “The composer has written a work of rare beauty, sensibility, and humanity, a work understandable by all.”