UnTuxed | Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90

This Rehearsal is being presented as a Relaxed Experience.

Relaxed Experiences are designed to make artistic spaces more welcoming and comfortable for neuro-diverse audience members, anyone on the autism spectrum, and people with sensory and/or communication disorders or learning disabilities. However, everyone can enjoy and benefit from the relaxed concert environment, including parents with babies and toddlers, individuals with Tourette’s syndrome, anyone who experiences anxiety, and folks who would simply like a more relaxed, easygoing atmosphere when attending a concert!

The WSO would like to acknowledge the support of our volunteers, Prelude Music, Canadian Mennonite University, and our Share the Music program for their support of this endeavour.

Listening Guide

Venue Guide

Daniel Raiskin, conductor

Known for cultivating a broad repertoire and looking beyond the mainstream for his strikingly conceived programmes, Daniel Raiskin has been the music director for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra since the 2018/19 season.

Daniel grew up in St. Petersburg, the son of a prominent musicologist, where he attended the celebrated conservatory in his native city. He continued his studies in Amsterdam and Freiburg, first focusing on the viola but was later inspired to take up the conductor’s baton.  He studied with maestri such as Mariss Jansons, Neeme Järvi, Milan Horvat, Woldemar Nelson und Jorma Panula.

Along with the WSO, Daniel was appointed Chief Conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra in 2020/21, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra in 2016/17.

During the 2021/22 season, Daniel took the Slovak Philharmonic and participated in a successful residency at at InClassica Festival in Dubai where they shared the stage with Rudolf Buchbinder, Gil Shaham, Daniel Hope and Andreas Ottensamer. The Philharmonic also toured Germany and Austria this past spring (2022) under Daniel’s leadership.

Program Notes by James Manishen

Symphony No. 3
Johannes Brahms
b. Hamburg / May 7, 1833
d. Vienna / April 3, 1897
Composed: 1882-1883
First performance: December 2, 1883 (Vienna), conducted by Hans Richter
Last WSO performance: 2013; Carlos Miguel Prieto, conductor

The summer of 1883 found Brahms visiting the German spa of Wiesbaden, which happened to be the home of “a pretty Rhineland girl’’ Brahms had met in January at the home of friends. A cordial friendship it became, though, typically, not leading to anything. Combined with the deaths of several friends plus a feud with his longtime champion Joseph Joachim, Brahms’s emotions (and obvious creative juices) were in full force that summer.

It had been six years since his Second Symphony. When the Third Symphony came along, it was almost universally acclaimed. “When I look at the Third Symphony of Brahms,’’ the great English composer Sir Edward Elgar wrote, “I feel like a tinker.’’

The shortest of Brahms’s four symphonies and the most classical in formal outline, the Third is a masterwork of inarguable logic, invention and beautifully unhurried narrative. Many have felt that it is not only Brahms’s finest work in the form, but among his finest music overall.

Conflicts and contrasts are ideally set in the opening movement, the opening string theme bursting out of the two introductory brass chords, later giving way to a pastoral second theme from the clarinet.

Grace and poise dominate the second movement. The heartfelt third movement replaces the usual scherzo, with cellos in full bloom. A brooding theme introduces the tautly structured finale, ending with a quiet recollection of the opening main theme.