Mendelssohn and Two Premieres

Award winning conductor Kent Nagano leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra through a program sandwiched by two striking Felix Mendelssohn works, opening with the glorious overture to Die Hebriden (The Hebrides), inspired by the composer's journey to the remote Scottish island of Staffa and its otherworldly basalt caves. Two premieres then make up the program's mid-point, with the world premiere of the specially commissioned Already And Not Yet by Tod Machover and the American premiere of Alex Nante's Ein Feste Burg, based on the Bach chorale and leading perfectly into the concert's finale.

That finale comes in the form of a return to Mendelssohn with his Fifth Symphony, also known as the Reformation symphony. Written in commemoration of the Augsburg Confession, the main confession of faith in the Lutheran church, the glorious work makes use a number of German choral staples, including the Dresden Amen and Martin Luther's Ein feste Burg is unser Gott.