BSO — 2018/03/24

This week, like last week, we get two symphonies, including one by Bernstein. The other is from the pen of Shostakovich. The following details are given on the orchestra's program detail page, where you'll also find links to program notes audio previews and performer bios (click on the thumbnail photos):

BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons continues the orchestra's season-long celebration of Leonard Bernstein's centennial with the composer's Symphony No. 2, Age of Anxiety, which features a dynamic, jazz-influenced piano part eminently suited to the style of this week's soloist, Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Following intermission comes Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 4, which continues the BSO and Andris Nelson's multi-season survey of the composer's complete symphonies. Shostakovich completed this dark but powerfully majestic work in 1936, but fears of official Soviet condemnation following a scathing criticism of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk led him to cancel the symphony's premiere. The Fourth was first performed only in 1961.

(Some emphasis added.)

I attended the  Thursday performance and liked the Bernstein Second Symphony better than I had last week's Third. It seemed more musical. It was also easier to follow thanks to program notes which quoted the composer liberally. I wasn't really expecting to like the Shostakovich, but it turned out to be pretty good. Despite its length, I never felt that it was getting to be too much. There is enough variety, especially going from full orchestra to featuring solo instruments, and plentiful musical ideas, to keep it from getting dull. I had never heard either piece, and now I wouldn't mind seeing either on another program.

The Boston Globe gives a highly favorable review, devoting most of its attention to the Shostakovich, but laudatory of the Bernstein as well. The extensive review in the Boston Musical Intelligencer gives  plenty of detail about both works and also praises the performances, calling attention to various details.

My recommendation is that you give it all a hearing on WCRB this evening at 8:00 EDST. It will also be rebroadcast on April 2 at 8:00 p.m. (On March 26, they will give us the rebroadcast of last week's concert of Tchaikovsky and Bernstein.) Their page also has a link to Classical.org, which includes a one-hour-plus video about "Religion and Spirituality in the Music of Bernstein." It could be useful to hear in advance of listening to the rebroadcast on Monday, as well as interesting in its own right.