Tickets to individual performances on sale July 26, 2022

RHAPSODY ON A THEME OF PAGANINI

October 29-30, 2022 | Music Hall

Tickets to individual performances on sale July 26, 2022

Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody plays on an iconic melody by a composer who defined virtuosity.

Program

ANDRZEJ PANUFNIK: Sinfonia Sacra

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

CHARLES IVES: The Unanswered Question

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Symphony No. 6

Artists

Michael Francis, conductor

Behzod Abduraimov, piano

Venue

Music Hall

Series

Series 3

What's Interesting

Michael Francis leads Vaughan Williams' war-torn Sixth Symphony 150 years after the English composer’s birth. Pianist Behzod Abduraimov shares his “prodigious technique and rhapsodic flair” (The New York Times) in Rachmaninoff’s variations on an iconic melody by legendary violinist-composer Paganini—a brilliant showcase of stunning moments and orchestral thrills. Panufnik's trumpet fanfare signals the start of the program, while Ives' somber trumpet ponders the "perennial question of existence.”

What Critics Are Saying:

"Michael Francis [conducted] a stunning realization of Vaughan Williams’ epic Symphony No. 2… keeping close rein on the sprawling structure of the huge first movement while eliciting countless lovely details from the orchestration. His grasp of the work’s drama was sure, and his ear for Vaughan Williams’ textures in the Lento and the Whistler-esque Scherzo…was all that could be hoped for."
—The Plain Dealer, Cleveland

“With prodigious technique and rhapsodic flair, Mr. Abduraimov dispatched the work’s challenges, including burst upon burst of arm-blurring octaves, with eerie command.”
—The New York Times