Most of the music on this program was written by teenagers: Mendelssohn was seventeen years old when he composed his Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Rachmaninoff completed his First Piano Concerto at the age of eighteen, the same age Strauss was upon completing his first Horn Concerto, and nineteen-year-old Shostakovich submitted his First Symphony as a graduation exercise from the Petrograd Conservatory. The overture to Rienzi, an early triumph for Wagner, completes the program.
Composers’ Early Successes
Felix Mendelssohn
Playlist
Richard Wagner: Overture to Rienzi
Daniel Barenboim, conductor
Richard Strauss: Horn Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 11
Daniel Barenboim, conductor; Dale Clevenger, horn
Igor Stravinsky: Fireworks, Op. 4
Pierre Boulez, conductor
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
Fritz Reiner, conductor; Byron Janis, piano
Felix Mendelssohn: Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 21
Jean Martinon, conductor
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 10
Leonard Bernstein, conductor
