Busoni's Violin Concerto by Berlioz, Busoni, Tchaikovsky, P. I., Respighi, Dv. 24 Gen. 2025, De (2025/2025), Director musical Daniele Rustioni, Jacobs Music Center, San Diego, United States

One of the most compelling conductors of his generation, Daniele Rustioni makes his Symphony debut in conducting this program of Italian-themed works. The evening begins with Berlioz’s rousing Roman Carnival Overture. Feruccio Busoni was one of the great Italian musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century. As a pianist he was world famous; as a composer he worked in almost every style, from Brahmsian romanticism to the strangest most dreamlike modernism. Making her Symphony debut, violinist Francesca Dego will perform one of her signatures: Busoni’s wonderfully dark and lyrical but dazzlingly virtuosic Violin Concerto. The second half of the program features Tchaikovsky’s symphonic fantasy based on one of the greatest and most tragic love stories ever told, the fatal affair between Francesca da Rimini and her brother-in-law Paolo and their subsequent murder by her enraged husband. It was Italy’s greatest poet Dante who immortalized their tale in his Inferno [Hell], and it was from Dante that Tchaikovsky took the motto which he wrote on the first page of his score: There is no greater sorrow/Than a happy time remembered in a time of misery. The concert ends with Respighi’s exuberantly dramatic Roman Festivals depicting scenes from ancient and contemporary Rome, from the gladiators and the harvest festival to celebrating the Epiphany in the Piazza Navona.