Auburn Symphony Orchestra
Wesley Schulz, conductor
David Fung, piano

Program

Igor Stravinsky - Petruska (1947 version)
Johannes Brahms - Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat, op. 83

About the Program

A puppet comes to life at a crowded fair, but this is no simple children’s tale.

In Petrushka, Stravinsky drops listeners into the noise, color, and danger of a Russian Shrovetide fair, where puppet theater turns strange and deeply human. Before The Rite of Spring shocked Paris, Stravinsky found one of his most vivid voices in this sharp, glittering score, with the piano cutting through the orchestra like Petrushka himself: restless, defiant, and impossible to ignore. NPR notes that Petrushka helped reveal Stravinsky’s own voice after The Firebird, especially in music shaped by physical gesture and psychological tension.

The second half turns from theater to grandeur with Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2. Pianist David Fung joins Auburn Symphony for a concerto of sweeping scale, elegance, and power, a work the Boston Symphony Orchestra describes as belonging to Brahms’ confident, mature period.