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VERSION:2.0
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DTSTAMP:20260717T214637Z
UID:4c7f4f16-ab4a-4158-8ac1-794281f7c71f
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260917
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260717
DESCRIPTION:Sep 17-26\, 2026\nIs the Vienna Philharmonic the world’s grea
 test orchestra? Many experts think so\, often crediting the institution’
 s distinctive practice of self-government. Rather than answer to some top-
 down music director\, the players choose guest maestros to lead them\, con
 cert by concert. In 1998\, Franz Welser-Möst was invited in\, and a long\
 , harmonious association has followed. In 2002\, he added to his portfolio
  the music directorship of the Cleveland Orchestra\, consistently ranked w
 ith America’s Top Five or Seven (a perhaps outmoded concept). Back in th
 e old days\, when self-respecting national publications had music critics 
 and the music critics had travel budgets\, Cleveland was frequently single
 d out the best of America’s best—not least for its aristocratic\, tran
 sparent Old World patina. Welser-Möst’s 25th and final Cleveland season
  perpetuates the aura with programs that are pure Vienna on the Cuyahoga. 
 The opening program launches with Richard Strauss’s autumnal but voluptu
 ous Four Last Songs\, featuring the plush vocals of Golda Schulz. Then com
 es the Eighth Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich\, widely accounted one of th
 e evasive composer’s most rewarding—though the possible extramusical p
 ersonal and historic agenda of the music\, if one exists\, remains hard to
  pin down (September 17\, 20). The following week\, Welser-Möst leads off
  with Liszt’s symphonic poem Orpheus (a contemplative favorite with the 
 composer’s son-in-law\, Richard Wagner)\, proceeds to Bohuslav Martinů
 ’s Second Symphony (a Cleveland commission dating to World War II)\, and
  closes with the luminous Second Symphony of Johannes Brahms. Brahms never
  named his symphonies\, and they’ve accrued no nicknames\, either. But t
 o call the Brahms Second his Pastorale is not far from the mark (September
  24\, 26).
LOCATION:Severance Hall\, 11001 Euclid Ave\, Cleveland\, OH 44106\, United 
 States
SUMMARY:Franz Welser-Möst's final season with the Cleveland Orchestra begi
 ns
URL;VALUE=TEXT:https://airmail.news/arts-intel/events/franz-welser-mosts-fi
 nal-season-with-the-cleveland-orchestra-begins
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