Parsifal is Wagner's final opera, and the composer wrote the libretto for it himself. The première took place at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth on 26 July 1882, to surprisingly great acclaim. Following the prelude to this work will come a performance of the cello concerto in A minor that Saint-Saëns wrote in 1872. The piece was first performed by Auguste Tolbecque on 19 January 1873, at the Conservatoire de Paris. The work Saint-Saëns created it during a particularly fertile period in his career, and in spite of the composer's young age, the concerto was quite a mature work. Prokofiev was credited for composing the music for numerous Soviet films. What could be termed his great success came from his collaboration with Sergei Eisenstein, which resulted in the music for the film Alexander Nevsky, a score that he later assembled into a large-scale cantata. Alexander Borodin's started to compose Prince Igor, his crowning achievement, in 1869. Left unfinished at his death, his two friends Alexander Glazunov and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov took on the task of completing it so that it could be premièred three years later. The Polovtsian Dances, the part of the opera to be performed tonight, has over time become a popular independent piece that is frequently performed in concert halls.

Presented by: Zugló Philharmonic