Utah Arts Review – Utah Symphony opens season with music from the canyon to the cosmos

by Edward Reichel

For their season-opening program, Thierry Fischer and the Utah Symphony took their audience on a heavenly journey Friday night, culminating in an at-times rambunctious but always engrossing performance of Gustav Holst’s The Planets. 

The basis for the program choices for much of the new season is Olivier Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles… Two movements of Messiaen’s epic were played Friday, though the focus this weekend was squarely on Holst’s monumental tribute to the planets.

The one exception to the celestial theme of the evening was Beethoven’s Overture to The Consecration of the House. Written in 1822 for the opening of a new theater in Vienna, it served this weekend to commemorate the exact 40th anniversary of Abravanel Hall, which opened its doors September 13, 1979.

Read on at utahartsreview.com