BSO — 2012/04/12-14 & 18-24 Info and Reviews

Sorry I've been late posting about these, but it's not too late to listen to the on demand webstream from Classical New England.

I missed the earlier performance,

Former Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Esa-Pekka Salonen makes a long-awaited return to the BSO podium with a sparkling program, including a recent work of his own, the highly admired Violin Concerto. The critically acclaimed and popular Canadian-born virtuoso Leila Josefowicz, for whom Salonen wrote the piece, is soloist in these performances. Ravel's familiar Le Tombeau de Couperin is the composer's own orchestration of four movements from his 1917 piano suite of the same name. Stravinsky's complete The Firebird ballet score, composed in 1910 for the Ballets Russes, launched the composer's international reputation with its kaleidoscopic orchestration and exotic sound. It remains one of his most popular works. http://www.bso.org/Performance/Detail/23006/

because I had a meeting to attend that Thursday.

 I was at Symphony Hall for the Beethoven and Mendelssohn on the 19th

 BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink leads three weeks of programs to conclude the 2011-12 season. He is joined by popular actress Claire Bloom as narrator and the bright young singers Layla Claire and Kate Lindsey for Mendelssohn's delightful complete incidental music to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, also featuring the women of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Opening these three weeks of concerts, each of which features a Beethoven symphony, is the composer's Symphony No. 1, a piece many years in the making that helped establish Beethoven's status as the major inheritor of the Viennese Classical style from Mozart and Haydn. http://www.bso.org/Performance/Detail/23009/

 and thought they were good.

The earlier concert sounded good on the radio, and the Globe reviewer was enthusiastic. http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/04/13/esa-pekka-salonen-makes-triumphant-bso-return-with-his-violin-concerto/Rm5yvrfiwFJiLtwG2EMahP/story.html The review for this week's program wasn't quite such a rave, but overall favorable. http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2012/04/20/sturdy-beethoven-sparkling-mendelssohn/fp3VAfbmy8DAngxdv6h3aK/story.html

So I think you'll find them both listening to. http://www.wgbh.org/995/