On Friday, May 11 and Saturday, May 12, Teddy Abrams and the Louisville Orchestra will close the 2017-18 season with Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” and “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” by Richard Strauss.
The two pieces on this program look at our place in the universe and our relationship with higher powers.
The first 22 bars of Strauss’ work (which is named after Nietzsche’s philosophical novel of the same name) are pretty recognizable; they were used as a major motif in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” catapulting the piece into prominence.
Meanwhile, “The Rite of Spring” sparked major controversy when it first debuted in Paris in 1913 — it is rumored to have started a riot at the theater — but is now considered a seminal work of modernism.
This concludes a Louisville Orchestra season that included pieces like Beethoven’s 7th symphony, Tchaikovsky’s “Concerto for Violin + Orchestra,” as well as new music as part of the Kentucky Classics: Festival of American Music.
The upcoming Louisville Orchestra season will include selections from Leonard Bernstein, Beethoven’s 9th symphony, and a series of new works commissioned by the orchestra.
