BSO — 2017/10/21

This week, it's "incidental music" — music written to go with plays — at the BSO. It's not part of my subscription so I haven't heard it and can't comment on the performance. Also, as of this writing, no review has appeared in the Boston Musical Intelligencer. But the orchestra's performance detail page gives — in addition to all the usual links to further information — the following description:

Bill Barclay and his creative team return to join BSO Associate Conductor Ken-David Masur for an imaginative treatment of Grieg's music for Ibsen's fantastical folk-play Peer Gynt. Rough and rustic, negligent and occasionally criminal, Peer Gynt undergoes many adventures-among them kidnapping his erstwhile fiancée, encountering the Mountain King and begetting a son by the king's daughter, traveling in North Africa, and sidestepping the Devil. Opening the program is Beethoven's incidental music for Goethe's tragedy Egmont, featuring soprano and narrator along with the orchestra, and best-known for its overture, which is frequently heard on its own. The play tells of the Flemish Count Egmont's refusal to relinquish his ideal of freedom in his struggle against the tyrannical Duke of Alba.

(Some emphasis added.)

The Globe review is mixed. Of course, you won't be able to see the action on stage, but you can hear the music, and whatever spoken words are part of the show.

Listen over WCRB tonight at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time (with a rebroadcast scheduled on Monday, October 30)., and see how well the music does on its own. Some of it has been in the standard repertory since it was composed. Check out the rest of the station's offerings through the links on their home page. On Monday, October 23 at 8:00 you'll have your chance to listen again to last week's concert of Ligeti, Dvořák, and Schumann.

Happy Listening!