Labadie Conducts Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony

Gluck’s luminous world, with Orpheus and Eurydice, opens the evening in a breath of elegance and classical grace. Young and impetuous, Beethoven extends this exuberance with his First Piano Concerto—sparkling with freshness and perfectly suited to the natural musicality of Alexandra Dovgan, a rising star of the piano. Bernard Labadie then invites Mendelssohn with his Italian Symphony, where one can almost hear the light, sunlit piazzas, and spontaneous dances. Through this program, filled with contagious joie de vivre, emerges the idea of music whose enthusiasm and elegance remain as communicative two centuries after these works were born.