Enchanting Harmonies: From Saint Saëns to Ravel

The PSO’s Winter Concert brings Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78, “The Organ Symphony” to The Music Hall for the first time. This sweeping romantic symphony was Saint-Saëns’ last and is a culmination of the composer’s wide-ranging style. The concert program features two other strongly contrasting French works. Olivier Messiaen’s Les Offrandes Oubliees (The Forgotten Offerings) is a meditative work of religious ecstasy that reflects the composer’s devout faith and his fascination with depicting stained glass in music, in all of its colors and captivating stasis. The first half comes to a cataclysmic end with Maurice Ravel’s La Valse, a work that describes a whirling, swirling, decadent dance to the death capturing the impact of World War I on social norms and artistic expression.