Season opening

We open with Stenhammar’s passionate and uplifting Excelsior!, written for and premiered by the Berlin Philharmonic in 1896 – a work brimming with emotion, striving toward the light.
Chausson’s Poème de l'amour et de la mer captures love in springtime, with glittering waves in the background. But as love fades, autumn arrives and the sea rolls on, indifferent.
Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (1830) tells the dramatic tale of an artist consumed by unrequited love.
In an opium-induced vision, he sees himself murder his beloved, face the guillotine, and end up at a witches' sabbath—where even love has turned into a nightmare.