Serge Diaghilev was turned down by four composers before turning to Igor Stravinsky to write the music for a new production by the Ballet Russe.&nbsp; &nbsp;Luckily, Stravinsky, eager to try his hand at a ballet, had already been working on the music for a month, and their artistic relationship went on to produce Petrushka and The Rite of Spring.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/hCN8_GkLztM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

Serge Diaghilev was turned down by four composers before turning to Igor Stravinsky to write the music for a new production by the Ballet Russe.&nbsp; &nbsp;Luckily, Stravinsky, eager to try his hand at a ballet, had already been working on the music for a month, and their artistic relationship went on to produce Petrushka and The Rite of Spring.

San Francisco Symphony Podcasts

Stravinsky’s Firebird

<div class="MsoNormal">In a piece he first wrote for children to play on the piano, Maurice Ravel found magical new sounds for the orchestra.<o:p></o:p></div> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/A9Ehfw7ikco" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

In a piece he first wrote for children to play on the piano, Maurice Ravel found magical new sounds for the orchestra.

Ravel: Mother Goose

<div class="MsoNormal">A child prodigy, Saint-Saëns was not only a gifted composer but an accomplished pianist who could perform all of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas from memory by the age of ten.&nbsp; Composed for the Philharmonic Society of London, his Symphony No. 3, Organ, is dedicated to his friend Franz Liszt.<o:p></o:p></div> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/egLG_zrVeWs" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

A child prodigy, Saint-Saëns was not only a gifted composer but an accomplished pianist who could perform all of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas from memory by the age of ten.&nbsp; Composed for the Philharmonic Society of London, his Symphony No. 3, Organ, is dedicated to his friend Franz Liszt.

Saint Saëns Organ Symphony

The premiere of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 was perhaps his greatest rock-star moment. Buoyed by the excited troops in whose honor the concert was being performed, Beethoven “tore his arms with a great vehemence asunder ... at the entrance of a forte he jumped in the air” (according to orchestra violinist and composer Louis Spohr). The work’s explosive energy and Beethoven’s expansion of symphonic structures to emphasize certain key areas make Symphony No. 7 an important stepping stone on his path towards Romanticism.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/Hdwdz-VyVuE" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

The premiere of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 was perhaps his greatest rock-star moment. Buoyed by the excited troops in whose honor the concert was being performed, Beethoven “tore his arms with a great vehemence asunder ... at the entrance of a forte he jumped in the air” (according to orchestra violinist and composer Louis Spohr). The work’s explosive energy and Beethoven’s expansion of symphonic structures to emphasize certain key areas make Symphony No. 7 an important stepping stone on his path towards Romanticism.

Beethoven No. 7

In his Three Pieces for Orchestra, Alban Berg finally "graduated" from his studies with Arnold Schoenberg, and took his first giant step towards fulfilling his musical destiny.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/LukpafERmZI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

In his Three Pieces for Orchestra, Alban Berg finally "graduated" from his studies with Arnold Schoenberg, and took his first giant step towards fulfilling his musical destiny.

Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra

<div class="MsoNormal">In 1906, Maurice Ravel made some sketches for a tribute to Johann Strauss, the Waltz King. By the time he got back to it, World War I had ravaged Europe, and Ravel's tribute had turned into something much darker.<o:p></o:p></div> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/MVmiSHuRSBM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

In 1906, Maurice Ravel made some sketches for a tribute to Johann Strauss, the Waltz King. By the time he got back to it, World War I had ravaged Europe, and Ravel's tribute had turned into something much darker.

Ravel La Valse

However you like your&nbsp;<em style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: &quot;Whitney SSm A&quot;, &quot;Whitney SSm B&quot;, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; pointer-events: fill; vertical-align: baseline;">Messiah&nbsp;- big or intimate, modern or period, authentic or interpreted - when you listen you become part of an almost 300-year tradition of what may be classical music's most beloved masterpiece.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/KyknPDxGNN4" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

However you like your&nbsp;Messiah&nbsp;- big or intimate, modern or period, authentic or interpreted - when you listen you become part of an almost 300-year tradition of what may be classical music's most beloved masterpiece.

Handel's Messiah

Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 "The Romantic" was a departure from his usual symphonic testaments of faith. It's a journey into the Age of Chivalry, of knights, quests, and - above all - the hunt.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/sadLrnyIO7A" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 "The Romantic" was a departure from his usual symphonic testaments of faith. It's a journey into the Age of Chivalry, of knights, quests, and - above all - the hunt.

Bruckner Symphony No. 4

<div class="MsoNormal">"Richard Strauss'&nbsp;Metamorphosen for 23 Solo Strings&nbsp;was his musical response to a life, and a world, gone to pieces."<o:p></o:p></div> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/KPO_Oiirg4g" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

"Richard Strauss'&nbsp;Metamorphosen for 23 Solo Strings&nbsp;was his musical response to a life, and a world, gone to pieces."

Strauss: Metamorphosen

With 19th-century Americana spirit, MTT and the SF Symphony, pianist Peter Dugan, and the SFS Chorus’s musical candor and clarity add an evocative recording of Ives’s songful Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4 to the SFS Media label’s Grammy award-winning discography.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/WUpR85_R3MI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

With 19th-century Americana spirit, MTT and the SF Symphony, pianist Peter Dugan, and the SFS Chorus’s musical candor and clarity add an evocative recording of Ives’s songful Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4 to the SFS Media label’s Grammy award-winning discography.

Charles Ives Symphony No. 3 & 4

<div style="text-align: center;">Bach's Orchestral Suite #4 is a dazzling combination of rhythmic complexity and sonic brilliance; all the more amazing in that he wrote it (most likely) just for fun!</div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/VkqpnX_0zWE" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

Bach's Orchestral Suite #4 is a dazzling combination of rhythmic complexity and sonic brilliance; all the more amazing in that he wrote it (most likely) just for fun!

Bach Orchestral Suite No. 4

Shostakovich's 7th Symphony became a symbol of the wartime alliance between the US and the USSR. But the road to victory is never easy, and it wasn't long before both the musical and the political symbols of that alliance disappeared<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/7OnGspuea14" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

Shostakovich's 7th Symphony became a symbol of the wartime alliance between the US and the USSR. But the road to victory is never easy, and it wasn't long before both the musical and the political symbols of that alliance disappeared

Shostakovich Symphony No.7 Leningrad

Originally composed for solo piano (and later orchestrated by Ravel),&nbsp;<em style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: &quot;Whitney SSm A&quot;, &quot;Whitney SSm B&quot;, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; pointer-events: fill; vertical-align: baseline;">Pictures at an Exhibition&nbsp;was written by Modest Mussorgsky after he visited a retrospective exhibit of the works of his friend Victor Hartmann.&nbsp; The collection of pieces represents a promenade from painting to painting, pausing in front of works called&nbsp;<em style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: &quot;Whitney SSm A&quot;, &quot;Whitney SSm B&quot;, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; pointer-events: fill; vertical-align: baseline;">The Gnome, Ancient Castle,&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; font-family: &quot;Whitney SSm A&quot;, &quot;Whitney SSm B&quot;, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; pointer-events: fill; vertical-align: baseline;">Great Gate of Kiev.&nbsp; Mussorgsky was a member of a nationalistic, anti-conservatory group of young musicians, and he had an unusual ability to interpret visual art in musical expression.&nbsp;&nbsp;<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/sjj6vcCR2AY" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

Originally composed for solo piano (and later orchestrated by Ravel),&nbsp;Pictures at an Exhibition&nbsp;was written by Modest Mussorgsky after he visited a retrospective exhibit of the works of his friend Victor Hartmann.&nbsp; The collection of pieces represents a promenade from painting to painting, pausing in front of works called&nbsp;The Gnome, Ancient Castle,&nbsp;and&nbsp;Great Gate of Kiev.&nbsp; Mussorgsky was a member of a nationalistic, anti-conservatory group of young musicians, and he had an unusual ability to interpret visual art in musical expression.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition

Mozart's final symphony was nicknamed the "Jupiter," and - like the planet and the Roman god that share its name - it still stands out as one of the greatest of its kind.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/TneWTw-N5VY" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

Mozart's final symphony was nicknamed the "Jupiter," and - like the planet and the Roman god that share its name - it still stands out as one of the greatest of its kind.

Mozart’s Symphony No. 41, Jupiter

<div class="MsoNormal">Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, Rhenish, completed in 1850 after his much-celebrated appointment as Municipal Music Director in Düsseldorf, reflects his optimism in the face of new challenges. Filled with spirited, glorious themes, Rhenish marks the high point in the life of a composer who struggled with mental illness. <o:p></o:p></div> <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SanFranciscoSymphonyPodcasts/~4/_ajxiB2Sk0w" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>

Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, Rhenish, completed in 1850 after his much-celebrated appointment as Municipal Music Director in Düsseldorf, reflects his optimism in the face of new challenges. Filled with spirited, glorious themes, Rhenish marks the high point in the life of a composer who struggled with mental illness. 

Schumann Symphony No. 3

Podcasts from the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas.

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San Francisco Symphony Podcasts

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