Art, poetry, philosophy, and even the stars—as represented in music. Van Gogh, Nietzsche, Paul Klee, and others inspired these works.

Leon Botstein shares the stories behind the music in a lively 30-minute Conductor’s Notes Q&A at 7 PM in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage. Free for all ticket holders.

Read the Playbill for this program. (©Playbill, Inc.)

GUNTHER SCHULLER
7 Studies on Themes of Paul Klee
Schuller’s most famous composition is a musical representation of 7 works by artist Paul Klee, ranging from blues harmonies to Arab melodies. Schuller and Klee were both musicians and artists in their younger years, so it’s fitting that Klee’s music-inspired art should influence Schuller’s work.

HENRI DUTILLEUX
Correspondances
At the age of 87, Dutilleux wrote his first orchestral song cycle, setting to music poems by Rainer Maria Rilke and Prithwindra Mukherjee, and two letters: one by Nobel Prize-winning writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn thanking his musician friends who gave him shelter in exile, and another from Vincent van Gogh to his brother.

NICO MUHLY
Seeing is Believing
ASO has co-commissioned this new orchestration of Muhly’s hypnotic work featuring a six-string electric violin. Muhly says the concerto “references the superstitious practice of observing and mapping the sky; while writing it, I wanted to mimic the process by which, through observation, a series of points becomes a line.”

RICHARD STRAUSS
Also sprach Zarathustra
Strauss’ famous tone poem—well-known from its use in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey—was inspired by Nietzsche’s work of the same name, borrowing chapter titles and themes. In the score, Strauss included these lines from Nietzsche: “For too long we have dreamt music, now let us awake. We were nightwalkers. Let us now be daywalkers.”

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