Composers' Early Successes

Most of the music on this program was written by teenagers: Mendelssohn was seventeen years old when he composed his Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Rachmaninov completed his First Piano Concerto, Strauss his First Horn Concerto at age eighteen, and nineteen-year-old Shostakovich submitted his First Symphony as a graduation exercise from the Petrograd Conservatory. The overture to Rienzi, an early triumph for Wagner, completes the program.

Show Notes

Program

Richard Wagner 
Overture to Rienzi
Daniel Barenboim, conductor

Richard Strauss 
Horn Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 11
Dale Clevenger, horn
Daniel Barenboim, conductor

Igor Stravinsky 
Fireworks, Op. 4
Pierre Boulez, conductor

Sergei Rachmaninov 
Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1
Byron Janis, piano
Fritz Reiner, conductor

Felix Mendelssohn 
Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, Op. 21
Jean Martinon, conductor

Dmitri Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 10
Leonard Bernstein, conductor