The Florida Philharmonic

Concert IV

Fire, Fate, and Fantasy

Friday January 22, 2027 | 7:30 pm

Burnt Store Presbyterian Church

About this Concert

Experience an unforgettable evening of musical drama, from Beethoven’s legendary Fifth Symphony to Mozart’s sparkling Magic Flute and Bizet’s fiery Carmen Suite.

Program

Act I

  • Symphony No. 5 (Ludwig van Beethoven): Perhaps the most famous four notes in all of music — “short-short-short-long” — open this 1808 symphony and drive nearly every theme that follows. Beethoven was almost completely deaf by the time he composed it, and the symphony’s journey from the stormy C minor of the opening movement to the triumphant C major finale has been read for two centuries as a musical arc from struggle to victory. It premiered in Vienna on the same freezing December night as Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony and Fourth Piano Concerto, in a concert so long and under-rehearsed that the orchestra reportedly broke down mid-performance and had to restart.

Preferred Seating .. $85 *

General Seating ….. $70

Student ………………. $10

Music Student …….. Complimentary

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* Preferred Seating is located in designated premium seating areas closest to the orchestra.

Act II

  • Overture to The Magic Flute (W.A. Mozart): Written in 1791, the final year of Mozart’s life, for his singspiel about trials of wisdom, love, and enlightenment. The overture’s famous three opening chords echo the “three knocks” ritual of Freemasonry, a tradition Mozart belonged to and wove throughout the opera’s symbolism.
  • Carmen Suite No. 1 (Georges Bizet): Bizet’s 1875 opera Carmen — the story of a fiery, independent factory worker who falls for a soldier, with tragic consequences — was booed at its premiere for being too scandalous and too real for Parisian opera audiences. Bizet died just three months later, never knowing it would become one of the most performed operas in the world. This orchestral suite draws together its most vivid orchestral moments, including the famous “Habanera” and the driving “Toreador Song.”
  • Intermezzo (Pietro Mascagni, from Cavalleria Rusticana): A brief, aching moment of stillness in the middle of an otherwise violent one-act opera about betrayal and revenge in a Sicilian village. The Intermezzo plays while the stage sits empty — a wordless pause for the audience to catch their breath before the opera’s tragic conclusion. It’s since become one of the most recognizable pieces of music in film and television, from Raging Bull to The Godfather Part III.
  • Scherzo from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Felix Mendelssohn): Remarkably, Mendelssohn wrote his first sketches for this incidental music at just 17 years old, inspired by Shakespeare’s comedy of mischievous fairies and mistaken love. He returned to the material sixteen years later to complete the full set, including this light, quicksilver Scherzo — famous for its flitting woodwind writing meant to conjure Puck darting through the forest.

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