Boston Pops — 2013/05/18

It's Boston University Night at the Pops (meaning that at some point they'll perform the university's Alma Mater and the sports "Fight Song"). The BSO performance detail page tells us

Join Broadway stars Jodi Benson, Doug LaBrecque, and Donna McKechnie as they pay tribute to the wonderful talents of one of the greatest contributors to music over the last century, Marvin Hamlisch. As composer, Hamlisch won virtually every major award: three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys, a Tony and three Golden Globes. On Broadway, he wrote the music for the long-running show, A Chorus Line and They're Playing Our Song. His more than forty motion picture scores include his Oscarwinning score and song for The Way We Were and his adaptation of Scott Joplin's music for The Sting. This memorable concert will feature music from his vast array of timeless music.

I was at the Hamlisch tribute show on Tuesday, and it was good. Since the theme of the Pops season is "Lights, Camera, Action!" there's lots of movie music in it. So I think you'll enjoy it if you like that sort of thing. Pre-concert show on Classical New England is at 7:00, concert at 8:00, rebroadcast/webstream May 26 at 1:00.

Tomorrow, May 19,  at 1:00, they retransmit last week's "Fantasia" program.

The Boston Pops Season Begins — 2013/05/11

As noted last time, the winter season of the Boston Symphony ended on May 4. That concert will be retransmitted on May 12 on Classical New England at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Saving Time. From now until June 30, we will be getting the Boston Pops instead on Saturday evenings at 7:00 with retransmissions on Sundays eight days after the live broadcast/webstream.

This evening's concert is described thus on the CNE's BSO page.

Fantasia!
Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops bring you the music of Disney's groundbreaking animated films Fantasia and Fantasia 2000.

You can also find the schedule for the rest of the Pops season there.

For its part, the Boston Symphony's performance detail page gives a bit more info.

Disney shares one of its crown jewels of feature animation in this concert showcasing selections from the original Fantasia andFantasia 2000. Enjoy Disney's groundbreaking marriage of symphonic music and animation. These screenings, accompanied by the live performance of some of the most memorable classical music ever composed, are brought to life by the Boston Pops conducted by Keith Lockhart. Ideal for the whole family, this is an unforgettable experience! Presentation licensed by Disney Concert Library ©Disney.

The principal orchestral concerts of the Symphony's Tanglewood season will begin on July 5, and continue August 25. There will be concerts on Fridays and Saturdays at 8:30 p.m. and on Sundays at 2:30 p.m. — with a different program each time. I expect all of these performances to be broadcast and streamed live over Classical New England.

So for now, you can enjoy some lighter fare, if that's to your taste, and in July and August, it will be a real bonanza of the more usual concert repertoire, with plenty of famous guest artists. Some pieces that were played during the winter season find their way into the schedule for Tanglewood as well, but there will also be plenty that wasn't played last winter. The full Tanglewood season brochure is here.

Double Post: BSO — 2013/05/02-04 & Orgy® Period

It's time for more orgies. WHRB is having their spring Orgy® Period. The program director summarizes it thusly:

Hooray for Orgy® Season! Get ready for three weeks of unique and exciting programming that's unlike the offerings of any other Boston station.

Classical fans will enjoy the music of Corelli, Feldman, Van Cliburn, Dowland, Lutoslawski, and more. Record Hospital followers will enjoy feminist punk, Flipper, Modest Mouse, Neurosis, and others. Fans of TDS can look forward to selections including Eurotronica, rap philosophers, women in hip hop, Blackwatch, Dungeon, and the Native Tongues. From Scorsese and the Blues to Cole Porter's timeless jazz to songs based on sports teams to an evening of Broadway, there's sure to be something for everyone.

Check out the program guide for the list of all 39 orgies® coming this May.

As he notes, more detail is in the Program Guide. Classical Orgies include:
May 6 — Van Cliburn
May 7 — Tokyo String Quartet
May 8 — John Dowland
May 9-10 — Ballet
May 12 — Warhorse Orgy
May 13 — Witold Lotoslawski Centenary
May 14-16 — 75th Birthday Orgy (Bolcom, Tower, Corigliano, and Harbison)
May 18 — Felix Weingartner

See the program Guide for the beginning and ending times of each orgy. Note also the Sunday evening operas listed for the summer on the last page of the guide. Sorry I wasn't alert and missed the Corelli Orgy on May 1.


Meanwhile the Boston Symphony closes out its season with a couple of "warhorses:" the Brahms Violin Concerto, and the Schubert Great C major Symphony. The detail page, with the usual links to audio and notes, describes the program as follows:

Bernard Haitink returns to the podium to lead the BSO's final concerts of its 2012-13 season, featuring the compelling Danish violinist Nikolaj Znaider in Brahms's soaring Violin Concerto. Mr. Haitink and the orchestra then end the season in grand fashion with Schubert's Symphony in C, The Great-the composer's ultimate (in both senses of the word: it is his biggest and last word in the genre) symphony-famously praised for its "heavenly length" by Robert Schumann, who observed also that it "transports us into a world we cannot recall ever having been before."

I was there on Thursday and enjoyed it, as did the Globe's reviewer for the most part.
You can hear it streamed over Classical New England this evening live at 8:00 with preliminaries at 7:00, or rebroadcast at 1:00 p.m. on May 12. Tomorrow, May 15, the rebroadcast is last week's Schubert/Mahler program. Check their BSO page for links to interviews. For the remainder of May and June, it seems that the symphony time will be given over to Boston Pops concerts. Then comes the BSO at Tanglewood, with three distinct programs every weekend.

BSO — 2013/04/25-30

The next to last concerts of this season are thus described on the BSO's program details page:

BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink-who was the Boston Symphony's principal guest conductor from 1995 to 2004-takes the helm for the last two weeks of the 2012-2013 season, beginning with a program of Schubert and Mahler symphonies. The teenaged Schubert composed his Symphony No. 5, a bracingly youthful work suggestive of Haydn and Mozart, in just a few weeks in the summer of 1816. After intermission, Swedish soprano Camilla Tilling is soloist in Mahler's mellifluous Symphony No. 4, a musical journey from earth to heaven.

Go there also for audio previews and program notes.

I was at the performance on Thursday evening and enjoyed it. There wasn't anything spectacular about it, IMO, but it was pleasant music, well performed, as far as I could tell. The Globe's reviewer raved. So I guess it's worth hearing.

You can hear it live this evening over Classical New England's broadcast or webstream at 8:00 (with preliminaries at 7:00), and, as usual, a repeat — without the hour-long warm-up — will be transmitted next weekend, on Sunday afternoon at 1:00. See their BSO page for further links.

Sunday, April 28, the repeat will be of the April 20 performance.

BSO — 2013/04/18-23

This week's concerts showcase the various sections of the orchestra playing without a conductor. The Orchestra's performance detail page, with links to an audio preview, an interview, and program notes. describes it as follows:

Following the great success of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's "members-only" concerts in January 2012, the individual sections of the orchestra again take the stage conductor-less to perform Britten's Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury, Mozart's Serenade No. 11 in E-flat for winds, K.375, Dvořák's Serenade for Strings, and Tippett's Praeludium for brass, bells, and percussion. The full ensemble then joins forces for Britten's well-known Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, which shines a spotlight on each section of the orchestra in turn.

I was at the Thursday performance (before the police chase began). It was okay, but not really exciting. The part I liked best was actually the Britten "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra," which they played with a conductor. The other Britten and the Tippett were also fairly enjoyable, but the others seemed too long. Players introduced each piece, and the violinist who introduced the Dvořák said that playing without a conductor wasn't a stunt, but for such a big piece, I think it may have been. I'm not sorry I was there, but it wasn't "must hear" IMO. The Boston Globe's reviewer was not unhappy, and tells a bit more about what happened.

See what you think. You can listen this evening over Classical New England at the usual time, with the rebroadcast/webstream on April 28. On April 21, the rebroadcast/stream will be of last week's concert, and CNE's "page 2" has audio and video links to related material.

BSO — 2013/04/12-13

There was no concert on Thursday this week, so I'll be having my first chance to hear it during the Saturday broadcast. As usual, the BSO's performance detail page offers links for program notes, audio previews, and an interview with the composer/conductor. There is also the following description:

The distinguished British composer/conductor Oliver Knussen leads his own Violin Concerto (2002) with soloist Pinchas Zukerman, for whom the piece was written. Then, making her BSO debut, English soprano Claire Booth takes center stage for Knussen's 1992 Whitman Settings, for soprano and orchestra. The program opens with the Symphony No. 10 by the early 20th-century Russian composer Nikolai Miaskovsky and closes with Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in a rarely heard orchestration by Leopold Stokowski.

Classical New England will broadcast and stream the Saturday performance beginning at 8:00 p.m. Boston Time, with the pre-game show (music by the evening's composers or performers, mostly; maybe an interview; maybe something else). CNE's BSO page has some interesting background info — not only an interview with maestro Knussen, but pictures to go with "Pictures at an Exhibition" and the Miaskovsky symphony.

The Globe has a very favorable review of the concert and an earlier preview interview with Knussen.

This program will be repeated over Classical New England on April 21 at 1:00 p.m. Since there was no concert a week ago, tomorrow's rebroadcast/stream will be from earlier in the season: the Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven program of November 23-27. See the CNE BSO page for details and links.

BSO — April Hiatus — Repeats

The BSO isn't performing in Symphony Hall this week, so there will be no live broadcast/webstream this Saturday. (I think they're on tour in New York.) Classical New England will fill the time slot with a rebroadcast/stream of a concert from last November, as described on their Boston Symphony page.

In an encore broadcast recorded in November 2012, conductor Giancarlo Guerrero leads the BSO in Roberto Sierra's Fandangos, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, with soloist Daniil Trifonov, and Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5.

Then on Sunday, they'll give the regular rebroadcast/stream of last week's Mahler 3rd Symphony.