The PSO’s Winter Concert brings Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78, “The Organ Symphony” to The Music Hall for the first time. Performed by soloist Seth Hurd on a Rodgers 3 manual organ, provided by Rodgers Organs of New England, this sweeping romantic symphony was Saint-Saëns’ last and is a culmination of the composer’s wide-ranging style. 

The concert program also features two other strongly contrasting French works. Olivier Messiaen’s Les Offrandes Oublieés (The Forgotten Offerings) is a meditative work of religious ecstasy that reflects the composer’s devout faith and his fascination with depicting stained glass in music, in all of its colors and captivating stasis. The first half comes to a cataclysmic end with Maurice Ravel’s La Valse, a work that describes a whirling, swirling, decadent dance to the death capturing the impact of World War I on social norms and artistic expression.