Among the returning artists is young Chinese pianist Yuja Wang.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra always performs music on a grand scale, but its 2010-11 BNY Mellon Grand Classics Season will tower in more ways than one.

The season will contain two monumental works of the standard repertoire, the fifth symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler, and it will include Verdi’s potent Requiem, Brahms’ Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4 and a festival of Tchaikovsky’s music.

But the composer-of-the-year fits the description best, American doyenne Joan Tower. The PSO will perform six of her works including «For the Uncommon Woman,» a clarinet concerto featuring principal clarinetist Michael Rusinek and a world premiere commissioned by the orchestra. Composer Alan Fletcher, who wrote a concerto for Mr. Rusinek last year, will write a Bassoon Concerto for the PSO’s principal Nancy Goeres next season.

Music director Manfred Honeck will increase his presence at Heinz Hall next season, conducting 10 of the 21 subscription programs. He will lead the orchestra in his first Wagner work, Prelude to «Lohengrin,» and he will uncoil several programming threads first introduced in earlier seasons. Mr. Honeck’s Mahler symphony cycle continues with the Fifth, which he calls «the most radical transition to the second period of Mahler’s career.» The Adagietto movement is perhaps the composer’s most famous — used in films and often heard on its own. Mr. Honeck will add the Adagio from Mahler’s unfinished Tenth Symphony, as well.

Mr. Honeck’s Beethoven cycle will continue with the Fifth and Sixth symphonies, and he again will offer his lighter Thanksgiving week concerts that focus on waltzes and polkas by the Strauss family. The conductor also will examine the music of the later Viennese composer, Webern, and he will conduct Richard Strauss’ «Don Juan,» possibly for a recording. But it is Verdi’s Requiem that has Mr. Honeck most excited.

«A conductor once said it is Verdi’s best opera, and I cannot deny that,» he says.

Whereas some conductors unleash the work with high volume, Mr. Honeck will «concentrate on what is quiet and silent,» seeking to express the drama in the work at all levels with the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh.

Soprano Renee Fleming will help the PSO open the season with a gala concert, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma will give a special recital in October.

The PSO will welcome 11 new artists to the stage, led by pianist Olga Kern. The Russian, who won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2001, will perform Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Baritone Matthias Goerne will debut singing selections of Mahler’s «Des Knaben Wunderhorn.» Also debuting are violinists Nicola Benedetti and Serge Zimmerman, French conductor Ludovic Morlot and Finnish maestra Susanna Malkki.

Among the returning artists is young Chinese pianist Yuja Wang, who impressed last year and will perform Rachmaninoff’s «Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,» violinist Vivane Hagner and pianist Jorge Federico Osorio. Lars Vogt, Jonathan Biss, stalwarts Yefim Bronfman, Emanuel Ax, Sarah Chang, Garrick Ohlsson, Helene Grimaud and others also return.

Principal guest conductor Leonard Slatkin will conduct much of Ms. Tower’s works but also the full ballet version of Copland’s «Appalachian Spring,» Bernstein’s Symphonic Suite from «On the Waterfront» and Del Tredici’s «Final Alice,» all PSO premieres. Conductor Marek Janowski will not make any appearances next season.

A two-week Tchaikovsky Festival will take place in February 2011, exploring Tchaikovsky’s music in the contextual manner of last year’s «Rediscovering Rachmaninoff Festival» with recitals, a symposium and lectures. Concerts conducted by Gianandrea Noseda and Mr. Honeck will feature pianist Denis Matsuev performing the famous Piano Concerto No. 1.

Next season, subscribers will be able to take some of Heinz Hall home with them. The PSO will allow each to download the equivalent of at least three full concerts per season, and ringtones will be available free of charge.

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