Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 by Nowowiejski, F., Yun, D., Tchaikovsky, P. I., Fra (2024/2024), Dirigent Anna Sułkowska-Migoń, Verizon Hall, Philadelphia, United States

A brilliantly textured tapestry of music embracing Eastern and Western cultures and styles from the Romantic to the contemporary, this concert is led by the Polish conductor Anna Sułkowska-Migoń, who is helping change the face of orchestral music. The concert features a new pipa concerto by Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Du Yun, heralded for her “elaborately theatrical” (The New York Times) multimedia collaborations with visual and performance artists. A lute-like instrument whose forebears date back more than 2,000 years, the pipa has four strings, 26 frets, and six ledges; its many left- and right-hand fingering techniques make it endlessly versatile and expressive. This premiere features the world’s foremost pipa virtuoso, Wu Man, “a one-woman force of nature … a muse for all manner of contemporary music” (Gramophone). Considered Poland’s “national opera,” Feliks Nowowiejski’s Baltic Legend is set in pre-Christian times in the mythical city of Vineta, which sank beneath the sea when a princess angered the gods. Sułkowska-Migoń conducts the brilliant overture, a work reminiscent of 20th-century Hollywood film scores. The program concludes with one of Tchaikovsky’s most romantic masterworks, the Fifth Symphony. Intensely exciting, achingly beautiful, this passion-filled work is a wild ride of emotions that takes the listener’s breath away, blotting out all consciousness of anything but this glorious music.