In a time of retrenchment in virtually every area of society, here’s a bit of upbeat news: The Dallas Symphony Orchestra is planning a tour to Europe. The DSO announced Wednesday morning that it will perform in England, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria for two weeks in February and March 2010.

The trip is made possible by two specialized DSO funds: the Kahn Touring Fund and the Linda and Mitch Hart International Touring Fund.

Conducting will be the orchestra’s new music director, Jaap van Zweden. The trip will be his first opportunity to show off the DSO in his hometown, Amsterdam. The orchestra will play in the Concertgebouw, one of the world’s renowned concert halls. Van Zweden is thoroughly at home in the venue; he was the concertmaster of the Concertgebouw Orchestra for a number of years.

The repertoire for the tour is a bit surprising; it hearkens back to the Andrew Litton directorship: the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony, the Rachmaninoff Second Symphony, the Shostakovich Leningrad Symphony and the Rachmaninoff First Piano Concerto. Only the Britten Violin Concerto and Medea’s Meditation and Dance of Vengeance by Samuel Barber are out of the Litton mold.

Pianist Simon Trpceski and violinist Simone Lamsma will be the concerto soloists.

The complete schedule includes Leeds, England (Feb. 27), Manchester (Feb. 28), Birmingham (March 2), Basingstoke (March 3), Leiden, Netherlands (March 5), Amsterdam (March 6), Bielefeld, Germany (March 8), Berlin (March 9), Vienna (March 10) and Cologne (March 11).