Enter Beddethoven at Schuster Performing Arts Center

As the season opens we find two legendary masters at the dawn of their careers, crafting immensely influential works despite their tender age. Strauss, at 25, wrote his first tone poem, the explosive Don Juan, under the influence of Wagner. Nonetheless, it sounds nothing like Wagner - as Strauss finds his own voice right away. Also at age 25, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his Piano Concerto No. 1 firmly stepping out from underneath Mozart's shadow. The program closes with Respighi's musical love affair with Italy, the sensational, coloristic tone poem The Pines of Rome.