Pablo Heras-Casado conducts Brahms and Berlioz with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra

May 13, 2019

On May 16, 17, 18 & 19, at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, Pablo Heras-Casado makes his highly anticipated return to lead the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Following his critically praised debut with the orchestra in 2017 leading an all-French program, Pablo returns to conduct Brahms’ Violin Concerto, featuring violinist Blake Pouliot, and Berlioz’s programmatic symphony, Symphonie fantastique.

Brahms’ Violin Concerto stands with Beethoven’s Concerto at the pinnacle of the violin repertoire. He dedicated the work to German violinist and composer Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), who offered Brahms technical and musical advice after seeing the first sketches of the concerto. Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique tells the story of an artist gifted with a lively imagination, who has poisoned himself with opium in the depths of despair because of hopeless, unrequited love. Widely regarded as a self-portrait of the composer, Leonard Bernstein described the symphony as the first musical expedition into psychedelia because of its hallucinatory and dream-like nature.