Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1, performed by Wesley Baldwin, was conceived and composed prior to the deterioration of his health and is, for the most part, a dark and introspective work. Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring was an avant-garde ballet and orchestral work when written in 1913 and caused riots among audience members. Stravinsky himself has described it as “a musical-choreographic work, [representing] pagan Russia…unified by a single idea: the mystery and great surge of the creative power of Spring.”