St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Artistic Partner Gábor Takács-Nagy returns for another consecutive season finale leading the orchestra in a program that touches on many of its 2025-26 season themes, including the idea of music and art as hope and light. Written in the final and darkest days of World War II, Richard Strauss’ monumental and emotional Metamorphosen mourns the corruption and destruction of German culture. This musical response to fascism, written for 23 strings, depicts a transformation from pain and darkness to hope and light, with homages to his German predecessors including Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. To close out the program, Robert Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony references the flow of the Rhine River and the ceaseless flow of time — a natural bookend to the season, which is framed by a quote from Schumann himself: “To send light into the depths of the human heart — this is the artist’s calling.” Listen to the live broadcast with host Steve Seel at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 17, on YourClassical MPR.
Program
St. Paul Chamber Orchestra
Gábor Takács-Nagy, conductor
ZOLTÁN KODÁLY Summer Evening
RICHARD STRAUSS Metamorphosen
ROBERT SCHUMANN Symphony No. 3 (Rhenish)
For more information regarding this concert, please visit the official website.
This activity is made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment‘s Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.
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