The Philadelphia Orchestra Yannick Nézet-Séguin Music Director

That’s how our very good friend guest conductor Gianandrea Noseda describes the experience of conducting the Philadelphians in Rachmaninoff’s beloved Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, during his second week on the Verizon Hall podium this season (November 27-28).

Noseda isn’t exaggerating. Rachmaninoff famously said he composed with the sound of The Philadelphia Orchestra in his head; when the Orchestra premiered the Rhapsody in 1934, the composer was at the keyboard (Leopold Stokowski conducted).

“This commission is going to resonate all over the city.”

That’s how Philadelphia Orchestra Director of Collaborative Learning Dan Berkowitz describes the impact Hannibal’s brilliant “spiritatorio,” One Land, One River, One People is sure to have in Philadelphia.

The explosion of nationalism in the mid-19th century fostered a love of one’s region and the history and traditions of the civilizations that emerged there, as well as a sense of self-determination—of taking that history and tradition in hand to build something greater. And its artistic yield was considerable: Artists in all disciplines, and musicians particularly, worked hard to identify the distinct ways their people perceived the world.