Musical road trip: Head to the birthplace of Western classical music with 'Germany and Austria'

The New Mexico Philharmonic will perform “Germany and Austria,” its final “Power Concert” on Sunday, March 10, at Immanuel Presbyterian Church.

The series is geared toward introducing young audience members and their families to classical music, the orchestra and the instruments.

Musical road trip: Head to the birthplace of Western classical music with 'Germany and Austria'

“It’s a wonderful way to introduce classical music,” said Roberto Minczuk, New Mexico Philharmonic music director. “I talk about the piece. I talk about the instruments. I get to interact with the audience.”

The musicians will play works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms and Johann Strauss.

The philharmonic will perform two movements from Brahms’ “Symphony No. 1,” which took him 21 years to write because he was so afraid of being compared to Ludwig van Beethoven.

Mozart’s familiar “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music),” an emblematic piece of classical music, also is on the program.

In a catalog of his works, Mozart lists “A Little Night Music” as having five movements. However, only four movements remain, the first minuet having been lost. So it remains an incomplete string serenade the size of a symphony that epitomizes both the genteel vivaciousness of the classical period and the composer’s blend of simplicity and fluency.

Strauss penned his famous “Blue Danube Waltz” during a post-war economic depression. The composer wrote a joyful waltz song to lift Austria’s spirit. Strauss recalled a poem by Karl Isidor Beck (1817-79) where each stanza ends with the line: “By the Danube, beautiful blue Danube.”

The music celebrates the city of Vienna and the river that runs through it. The waltz, the dance craze of its day, captured the cultured elegance of the Habsburg Empire.

“Strauss was one of Brahms’ favorite composers,” Minczuk added.

German and Austria formed the cultural hotspots of the day and the birthplace of Western classical music.