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Ludwig van Beethoven
Leonore Overture No. 2 for Orchestra, Opus 72a
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany, probably on December 16, 1770 (his baptismal certificate is dated the 17th) and died in Vienna on March 26, 1827. The overture known today as Leonore No. 2 was actually the first composed and was used at the first performance of Beethoven’s only opera, which took place at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on  November 20, 1805. The score calls for an orchestra consisting of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, and strings. Duration is about 13 minutes.

Béla Bartók                 
Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta
The Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, commissioned by Paul Sacher for the tenth anniversary of his Basel Chamber Orchestra, is one of the most powerful scores of the 20th century and quite possibly Bartók’s greatest single achievement. No other score of his shows more clearly his ability to organize the smallest musical units into an architecture based on a carefully laid-out structure of proportions, and yet, with all this “mathematical” paraphernalia, to produce music that speaks to ear, mind, and heart with astonishing directness.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 61
Beethoven wrote the concerto for a remarkable musician named Franz Clement, who had been known as a child prodigy in the 1790s, when his father had taken him on concert tours. In 1794 Beethoven heard the fifteen-year old boy play in Vienna, and signed his autograph book as a memento of the occasion. Clement became the music director of the Theater an der Wien from 1802 to 1811. His musical memory was prodigious. When meeting with Beethoven to discuss possible cuts in the original version of his Fidelio, he played through the entire score at the piano without music. In April 1805 he was the concertmaster for the first public performance of the Eroica Symphony. It was for this remarkable colleague that Beethoven wrote his violin concerto. The story goes that he barely finished the work in time for the concert, and Clement is supposed to have played his part at sight, which must be, at the very least, a slight exaggeration.