Celebrate Musical Storytelling with Boston Conservatory Orchestra at Symphony Hall
On October 27 at Symphony Hall, Boston Conservatory Orchestra will present Telling the Story, a program curated by conductor Bruce Hangen that showcases the storytelling powers of symphonic music. With a deftness that rivals any novel or film, orchestras can set scenes, embody characters, and weave narratives in the minds of imaginative listeners—without speaking a single word. Featuring two masterworks by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Richard Strauss, and an overture by rising-star composer Quinn Mason, Boston Conservatory Orchestra aims to do just that in its own storied setting, Boston’s Symphony Hall.
Tickets to Telling the Story are available through the Symphony Hall box office. For a preview of the performance, check out the recordings below:
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
In Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, good storytelling is the difference between life and death. Adapted from the Middle Eastern folktales of One Thousand and One Nights, the plot revolves around the embittered Sultan Shahryar, who has vowed to marry and then murder a succession of young women, and his latest bride, the clever Sultana Scheherezade. On their wedding night, she tells him a story so riveting he lets her live another day, just to hear how it ends. For one thousand and one nights she keeps him in suspense with a new tale, and he postpones her execution—until finally deciding to spare her life.
Himself a gifted storyteller, Rimsky-Korsakov composed two of the most recognizable motifs in classical music for Scheherezade, introducing both in the opening minutes of the suite. The tyrannical sultan announces his presence in the blaring low brass, and Scherhazade’s lithe, triplet-laced theme is voiced by solo violin.
Richard Strauss: Orchestral Suite from Der Rosenkavalier
The orchestral suite from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier compiles the best of the comic opera’s unabashedly romantic melodies and condenses them into a concise, 25-minute love story: The boorish Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau has become engaged to Sophie von Faninal, daughter of a wealthy army contractor. Ochs asks his aristocratic cousin, the Marschallin von Werdenberg, to recommend a rosenkavalier, who will present Sophie with a traditional silver engagement rose. The Marschallin recommends her own, much younger lover, Count Octavian Rofrano; and in operatic fashion, Octavian and Sophie fall head over heels the moment they lay eyes on each other. Though her feelings for Octavian are genuine, the Marschallin selflessly steps aside and helps put an end to Sophie’s unhappy engagement, seeing her romantic rival as a younger version of herself.
Highlights of the orchestral suite include several waltzes Strauss composed for Der Rosenkavalier, which opera historian George Lascelles has called “a masterpiece of pastiche, an evocation of an unrealistic, fairy-story Vienna of long ago, a brilliant tour-de-force.”
Quinn Mason: “Toast of the Town” Overture
Overtures typically introduce a long-form work, setting the stage for an opera or ballet to follow. Quinn Mason wrote “Toast of the Town” as a free-standing piece, the opening to “an operetta that doesn’t exist.” It has no underlying narrative, per se, but Mason encourages listeners to come up with their own story. And he says, “I’ve gotten some fascinating results that way.” Modeled on compositions by Jacques Offenbach and Gilbert and Sullivan, the overture’s lighthearted tone calls to mind comedic plots from their well-known classics.
Just 28 years old, Mason has had his orchestral works performed by more than 170 ensembles throughout the U.S. and Europe, including the leading symphony orchestras of San Francisco, Seattle, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, and Kansas City, as well as the National Symphony Orchestra.
Boston Conservatory Orchestra: Telling the Story is a 2024–2025 Center Stage selection. Learn more about the performance and get tickets.