The Cape Symphony Orchestra presents Passport to Vienna at the Barnstable Performing Arts Center on January 24, 2026 at 4:00 PM and on January 25, 2026 at 3:00 PM.
Ticketholders are invited to a discussion of the concert program led by George Scharr one hour before each performance.

Download a printable version of these Program Notes.

THE CAPE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Music Director, Conductor
Alyssa Wang

Guest Artist
Awadagin Pratt, Piano

CONCERT PROGRAM

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG (1874-1951)
Chamber Symphony No. 2, op.38
Adagio
Con fuoco

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (1756-1791)
Piano Concerto No. 23, K.488, A major
Allegro
Adagio
Allegro assai

Intermission (20 minutes)

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 7, op. 92, A major
Poco sostenuto - Vivace
Allegretto
Presto
Allegro con brio

ABOUT "PASSPORT TO VIENNA"

Our program opens with Arnold Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 2. Born in Vienna in 1874, Schoenberg spent his early professional life teaching and composing there and in Berlin. He emigrated to the United States with his family in 1933, having been forced from the Prussian Academy of Arts when the Nazis seized control of it. After one Boston winter, the Schoenbergs moved on to Los Angeles, where he wrote and taught at USC and UCLA, lived across the street from Shirley Temple, and played weekly tennis with George Gershwin.

Schoenberg had begun Chamber Symphony No. 2 in Vienna in 1906, but did not complete it until 1939, encouraged by Fritz Stiedry of the New Friends of Music Orchestra, which premiered the work at Carnegie Hall in 1940. Resuming the work didn’t come easily. “I have been working on the Second Chamber Symphony for a month now,” he wrote to Stiedry. “I spend most of the time trying to understand: ‘what was the composer trying to say?’ My style has deepened in the meantime, and I have trouble reconciling what I justifiably wrote down at the time…”

“Chamber Symphony No. 2 is a fascinating snapshot of Arnold Schoenberg’s compositional journey across the first 40 years of the 20^th century,” says Music Director Alyssa Wang. “To classical music academics, Schoenberg is most known for his 12-tone technique, which sought to upend the building blocks of melody and harmony by creating a sequence of notes that uses all 12 tones in the scale without repeat. The emotional effect is unique—without any repeated tones to ground one’s ear, it can often sound like the music is constantly swimming and never able to find a point of stability. When Schoenberg completed this second Chamber Symphony, he had already created his 12-tone method and was experimenting with a compositional sound world that combined the instability of 12-tone with more tonal elements. The result is a highly complex and distinctive compositional language that rides the line between modernism and ultra romanticism. This is tricky for any orchestra to play, as the layers and connecting material are dense and highly specific. It takes a lot of discipline to realize Schoenberg’s many directions!”

We are thrilled to welcome celebrated American pianist Awadagin Pratt to the stage to perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23. Pratt has called this concerto “one of my favorite pieces of music… the piece is full of joy and vitality. There’s a real elation.” Yet, “the slow movement is one of Mozart’s personal expressions of great despair and sorrow.”

A child prodigy who toured Europe before his teens, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart matured into a composer whose music shines with refinement and wit, profound beauty and deep emotion. When he completed Piano Concerto No. 23 in March 1786, and Piano Concerto No. 24 just three weeks later, Mozart was at the height of his creative powers in Vienna. Piano Concerto No. 23 was part of a subscription concert series given that spring, likely played by Mozart himself. It was a prolific time; The Marriage of Figaro also premiered in Vienna that year.

The concerto showcases Mozart’s gift for dialogue between soloist and orchestra. The opening movement fairly sparkles with elegance, as the piano enters as a conversational partner. The central Adagio – in F-sharp minor, rare for Mozart – is one of his most poignant and tender slow movements. The finale restores lightness and grace with a charming sense of play.

“Music expresses every aspect of the human condition,” Pratt reflected in an interview for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he is Professor of Piano. “It’s a specific language that we deal in… celebrating our capacity for these extreme and normal emotions, everything from abject despair to jubilant joy.”

Intermission

Your Cape Symphony Orchestra will now perform Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

“Symphony No. 7 never fails to bring me joy!” says Alyssa Wang. “Astonishingly, Beethoven was mostly deaf when he began writing this masterpiece. The vigor and joy that are present throughout are in stark contrast to the struggles of his personal life, almost as if he were making a determined stance to be ever hopeful despite his struggles. What I love about this symphony is that Beethoven takes each emotion and goes one step further—it’s not just joy, but ecstatic bliss; it’s not just exciting, but bursting at the seams; and when the music is somber, as we see so famously in the second movement, it is like hearing the end of the universe. After the complexity of Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony and the refined inwardness of Mozart’s piano concerto, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 is a perfect jubilant conclusion to finish out this concert!”

As Beethoven composed this symphony, Austria had declared war on France and Vienna had been occupied by Napoleon’s army twice in four years. Inflation was high, hardship was widespread, and many aristocratic patrons of the arts had fled the city or reduced their support. Public concerts increasingly replaced private court performances as venues for new large-scale works.

Symphony No. 7 premiered in 1813 at the University of Vienna, as part of a well-attended benefit concert for Austrian soldiers wounded defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig earlier that year. Beethoven himself conducted, relying on memory and visual cues to compensate for his hearing loss. Patriotic fervor ran high, and the Seventh Symphony was enthusiastically received. Its emphasis on rhythm, repetition, and forward momentum deeply affected Vienna’s war-weary audiences, standing in contrast to the political instability of everyday life at the time.

The first movement’s slow introduction establishes a sense of anticipation before launching into a kinetic Vivace driven by insistent rhythmic cells. The Allegretto, immediately encored at the premiere, was perceived by contemporary listeners as solemn and noble, its steady pulse evoking both mourning and resolve. The final movements press forward with increasing urgency. Rather than offering lyrical repose, Beethoven sustains momentum almost relentlessly, culminating in a finale of near-ecstatic force.

In early 19th-century Vienna, a city grappling with violence, loss, recovery, and national identity, Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony was a mighty assertion of shared human energy, transforming rhythm into a unifying expressive power. Transcending time and place, these themes resonate to this day.

Thank you for attending “Passport to Vienna.” We hope you enjoyed the concert and that we’ll see you again soon.

BEHIND THE SCENES

PRODUCTION TEAM

Director of Operations
Patrick Gallagher

Stage Manager
Kimberly Monteiro

Assistant Stage Manager
Brendan Gallagher

Lighting Designer
Kendra Murphy

Stage Crew
Jay Ivanof
John Bishop

ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR
Joe Marchio

HOSPITALITY COORDINATOR
Charlotte Baxter

LIBRARIAN
Victoria Krukowski

MANAGING ARTISTIC PRINCIPAL
Jae Cosmos Lee

PERSONNEL MANAGER
Wesley Hopper

Cape Symphony Staff and Board of Trustees

The Cape Symphony Orchestra’s Masterpiece series concerts are sponsored by Cape Cod 5.

SUPPORT YOUR CAPE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Concert ticket sales cover only part of the cost to maintain a professional orchestra on Cape Cod. Generous donations and community support make the difference.

Donating is easy, online at www.capesymphony.org/donations or by mail to Cape Symphony, 2235 Iyannough Road, West Barnstable, MA 02668. Thank you!

Program Notes by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. References include: carnegiehall.org; clevelandorchestra.com; esm.rochester.edu; The Illustrated History of the Great Composers, by Wendy Thompson; schoenberg150at; theamericanscholar.org; The Timetables of History, by Bernard Grun; A. Wang, pers. comm.; wqxr.org.