This evening the BSO is giving Symphony No. 93 by Haydn, Bela Bartók's Third Piano Concerto, and, after intermission, the Beethoven 5th Symphony. Guest conductor is Roberto Abbado, and Peter Serkin is the pianist.
I heard the performance on Thursday evening and really enjoyed it. In retrospect, I guess the ensemble seemed a bit ragged at points, but the most important thing was that the Bartók concerto was actually enjoyable to listen to (for me anyway), and it's always a pleasant surprise when something by Bartók is enjoyable. Of course Haydn is always worth hearing. In the Beethoven some reviewers thought the tempi were too fast. I hadn't noticed it, but come to think of it, the beginning of the fourth movement was definitely faster than some conductors used to take it. Anyway, I think it's all worth hearing, and I want to record the Bartók.
Here's how the BSO website describes the program.
The intense poetic individuality of Beethoven’s nine symphonies heralded the start of Romanticism. In his Symphony No. 5—the most immediately recognizable symphonic work in the repertoire—he focuses almost obsessively on the famous opening four-note motif, which infuses the entire piece as it moves through a wide variety of moods from the dark C minor of the opening to the work’s triumphant C major close. Hearing Beethoven’s Fifth played live by a great orchestra never fails to revitalize this familiar piece for any listener. Haydn’s Symphony No. 93, which opens this program, was one of a dozen such works he wrote for audiences in London, where he spent two triumphant musical seasons in the first half of the 1790s. Dating from the height of his international career, Haydn’s twelve “London” symphonies (Nos. 93-103) stand as a culmination of the genre in the Classical era. Between the two symphonies on this program, acclaimed American pianist Peter Serkin joins Roberto Abbado and the BSO for one of the mid-twentieth century’s most engagingly atmospheric concertos, Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, intended originally as a vehicle for his wife, and written not long after the Hungarian composer’s ever-popular Concerto for Orchestra. [Emphasis added.]
For more from the website about the music you can go to this page and launch the media center.
And here's a link to the review in the Boston Globe.
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