La Mer and Brahms’ Violin Concerto

This concert begins with hidden stories. While Anna Clyne based “This Midnight Hour” on two very different poems, by Juan Ramón Jiménez and Charles Baudelaire, she explicitly avoided depicting any specific narrative. She wrote, “my intention is that it will evoke a visual journey for the listener.”

The visual imagery in Debussy’s La Mer is astonishing. Debussy portrays subtle shifts on the water, the play of the waves, the swells of the ocean so vividly it makes one taste the salt and feel the spray. This music was modern when it was written, and it remains modern today.

Midori is a great artist, a supreme violinist, a tireless educator and activist for music, and a generous colleague. Welcoming her back to play the magnificent Brahms’s violin concerto, symphonic in its scope and soaring in its reach, is a reason to celebrate.