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Some Brahms with your Brahms at San Diego Symphony
Looking ahead with excited anticipation at the 2025-2026 lineup
Johannes Brahms
I have it on good authority that the San Diego Symphony concert on Sunday, February 9, provided a fantastic experience of classical music. My plans to attend were usurped by a family medical situation. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t talk about a concert that I didn’t attend, but apparently, this one was special.
The meat of the concert was the Symphony No. 2 by Johannes Brahms. Over the years, I’ve been covering the Symphony, the Brahms symphonies seem to be repeated consistently — and for good reason. They are masterpieces. I was looking forward to hearing how San Diego Symphony Music Director Rafael Payare handled the second. I'm sad that I missed it.
However, I do have a chance to hear it during the 2025-26 Jacobs Masterworks season. In fact, if I so desired, I could hear Payare conduct all four Brahms symphonies in 2026. In late February and March of that year, the San Diego Symphony will be presenting a Brahms Festival; the repertoire will be all four symphonies, the violin concerto, and the German Requiem. However, it you want to hear all four symphonies, you will have to hear the violin concerto twice. Such is life.
I should mention that the Brahms Festival follows a massive slate of January and February concerts, a slate so impressive it has me writing about it a year in advance. January features Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7 on Saturday and Sunday, January 17 and 18. Dvorak is followed by Dimitri Shostakovich. His Symphony No. 8 will crash into The Jacobs Music Center on Saturday and Sunday, January 24 and 25. January finishes with Symphony No. 7 by Gustav Mahler. This is an interesting one. I find Mahler’s Seventh to one of his more interesting pieces. In many ways, it could be considered his pastoral symphony. February has Pytor Tchaikovsky’s monumental Symphony No. 6 on Saturday and Sunday, February 21 and 22.
Following the Brahms Festival are two concerts that I might be looking forward to more than any of the others. On Saturday and Sunday, April 18 and 19, the San Diego Symphony will finally be performing Symphony No. 2 by Alexander Borodin. Man, I love that piece. The concerts will also feature the infinitely popular “Polovotsian Dances” from Borodin’s Prince Igor.
The final concert of the 2025-26 season is headlined by Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. You know this one. It was made famous by its inclusion in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, the film included only the opening few minutes of a glorious piece of music.
All in all, the 2025-26 Jacobs Masterworks Season has me pumped up and ready to skip summer and go straight into autumn.
Video:
Borodin: Second Symphony
Here's something you might be interested in.
Some Brahms with your Brahms at San Diego Symphony
Looking ahead with excited anticipation at the 2025-2026 lineup
Some Brahms with your Brahms at San Diego Symphony
Looking ahead with excited anticipation at the 2025-2026 lineup
Johannes Brahms
I have it on good authority that the San Diego Symphony concert on Sunday, February 9, provided a fantastic experience of classical music. My plans to attend were usurped by a family medical situation. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t talk about a concert that I didn’t attend, but apparently, this one was special.
The meat of the concert was the Symphony No. 2 by Johannes Brahms. Over the years, I’ve been covering the Symphony, the Brahms symphonies seem to be repeated consistently — and for good reason. They are masterpieces. I was looking forward to hearing how San Diego Symphony Music Director Rafael Payare handled the second. I'm sad that I missed it.
However, I do have a chance to hear it during the 2025-26 Jacobs Masterworks season. In fact, if I so desired, I could hear Payare conduct all four Brahms symphonies in 2026. In late February and March of that year, the San Diego Symphony will be presenting a Brahms Festival; the repertoire will be all four symphonies, the violin concerto, and the German Requiem. However, it you want to hear all four symphonies, you will have to hear the violin concerto twice. Such is life.
I should mention that the Brahms Festival follows a massive slate of January and February concerts, a slate so impressive it has me writing about it a year in advance. January features Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7 on Saturday and Sunday, January 17 and 18. Dvorak is followed by Dimitri Shostakovich. His Symphony No. 8 will crash into The Jacobs Music Center on Saturday and Sunday, January 24 and 25. January finishes with Symphony No. 7 by Gustav Mahler. This is an interesting one. I find Mahler’s Seventh to one of his more interesting pieces. In many ways, it could be considered his pastoral symphony. February has Pytor Tchaikovsky’s monumental Symphony No. 6 on Saturday and Sunday, February 21 and 22.
Following the Brahms Festival are two concerts that I might be looking forward to more than any of the others. On Saturday and Sunday, April 18 and 19, the San Diego Symphony will finally be performing Symphony No. 2 by Alexander Borodin. Man, I love that piece. The concerts will also feature the infinitely popular “Polovotsian Dances” from Borodin’s Prince Igor.
The final concert of the 2025-26 season is headlined by Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. You know this one. It was made famous by its inclusion in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, the film included only the opening few minutes of a glorious piece of music.
All in all, the 2025-26 Jacobs Masterworks Season has me pumped up and ready to skip summer and go straight into autumn.
Video:
Borodin: Second Symphony