The program opens with Webern’s first published work, Passacaglia, and concludes with Shostakovich’s lyrical Sixth Symphony.

The concerts are held at Orchestra Hall on Thursday, March 6, at 7:30 p.m., and Friday, March 7, at 8 p.m., with ticket prices ranging from $25 to $83.

The Soloist: Alfred Brendel, piano

Alfred Brendel, making his sixth appearance with the Minnesota Orchestra since his 1975 Orchestra Hall debut, has made a lifelong commitment to performing the works of such Central European composers as Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart. One of the most prolific recording artists of our time, Brendel has recorded the Beethoven piano concertos four times, most recently with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Brendel, who gave his first public performance in 1948, has announced that his final concert will be on December 18, 2008, with the Vienna Philharmonic.

Brendel will continue other activities despite his retirement from live performance. Gramophone magazine, reacting to his career shift, wrote: “…[it is] a decision that will allow him time to take stock, to step back from a life of incessant activity. Yet… we shall surely see him in his professorial role for masterclasses, as lecturer [and] writer…. At the same time his colossal output of recordings will stand as a lasting testament to his greatness.”

The Music: Webern’s Opus 1, Beethoven emulates Mozart, Shostakovich’s “headless” symphony

Anton Webern’s Passacaglia, written near the end of the composer’s apprenticeship with Arnold Schoenberg, blends lush Romantic orchestration with the expanded harmonic language of the 20th century. The work premiered nearly a century ago, in November 1908.

Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto was introduced in 1803, with the composer as soloist, at a concert that also featured the first performance of his Second Symphony. Dramatic and virtuosic, the concerto is reminiscent of Mozart while foreshadowing the heroic style of Beethoven’s later concertos.

Dmitri Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony consists of three movements, rather than the usual four, pairing a slow, poignant opening with two fast movements. An early critic, surprised by the work’s lack of a traditional sonata-form opening movement, dubbed it “a symphony without a head”—but modern musicologists such as Eric Bromberger have called it one of Shostakovich’s finest symphonies. -- www.minnesotaorchestra.org