BSO — 2018/04/28

This week the BSO gives us two works both of which received their American premieres from this orchestra: the Brahms Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 5 by Prokofiev. The orchestra's performance detail page has the usual links to background information and the following synopsis:

For his second week of concerts this season, Tugan Sokhiev leads the BSO in Brahms's towering Violin Concerto, with the outstanding, Ukrainian-born, Israeli violin soloist Vadim Gluzman in his BSO winter season debut. Brahms wrote his concerto in 1878 for his lifelong friend Joseph Joachim. Closing the program is Prokofiev's wartime Symphony No. 5, a powerful, searching, and expansive work premiered in January 1945 with the composer conducting.

(Emphasis added.)

You can hear it this evening at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time (EDST) over WCRB, broadcast or streaming on line, with a second transmission at 8:00 p.m. on Monday, May 7. Note the other programming information on their website. I especially recommend the Monteverdi Vespers, which will be part of the 9:00–12:00 "Voices" program on Sunday evening, April 29. If you're unfamiliar with Renaissance music, this will be amazing.

No review of the concert has appeared yet in the Musical Intelligencer. The Globe's review is favorable, but not a rave. I wasn't there on Thursday, so I can't give you my own impressions, but I guess it should be worth hearing.

BSO — 2018/04/21

Last week I went to Colorado for the wedding of a cousin and didn't have time to post about last Saturday's concert. The same program was given on Tuesday this week, and I heard it then. I'm sorry I wasn't around to recommend it last week, because it was a gem. Fortunately there is still the rebroadcast on Monday, April 30. Listen if you can. Here's how the BSO's program detail page describes it:

Russian-Ossetian conductor Tugan Sokhiev and Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki both make their BSO debuts in these concerts, working together in Frédéric Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1. Already acclaimed as a prodigy, Chopin was just twenty when he wrote and premiered this concerto in 1830. The piece blends Classical concerto form with the composer's entirely individual piano writing and lyrical Romanticism. Felix Mendelssohn began his Symphony No. 4, ["Italian"] also in 1830 during an extended stay in Italy. The predominantly cheerful opening movement reflects his pleasure in the Mediterranean environs. Opening the program is Benjamin Britten's  Simple Symphony, an utterly charming string-orchestra work created from fragments of his youthful compositions.

(Some emphasis added.)

The Britten piece was light and full of youthful good spirits — a very enjoyable beginning to the evening. It's a piece I wasn't familiar with, so it was a very pleasant surprise, given my general impression of later Britten. On the other hand, my father had a recording of the Chopin concerto, and we played it fairly regularly. The performance in this concert lived up to my expectations. While I don't have the expertise to pick up all the subtleties the reviewers noted in the piano playing,, it seemed excellent to me. The only problem was that in several places where a solo horn was playing along with the piano, the horn drowned out the piano. Maybe the radio engineers can fix that. After intermission, Mendelssohn;s Italian Symphony,was just what I expected. So it was thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end.

The reviews were enthusiastic, both in the Globe and in the Musical Intelligencer. So if you listen to WCRB at 8:00 p.m EDST on April 30, you're in for a treat.

BSO/Classical New England — 2018/04/14

This week the BSO is on tour to Carnegie Hall, so WCRB is giving us a "encore broadcast" and webstream of the concert given last July 16 at Tanglewood. Andris Nelsons conducts the world premiere of Markings for violin, strings, and harp by John Williams, the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with Anne-Sophie Mutter as soloist, and, after intermission, Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz. I posted about it at the time, but there wasn't any further information, except the links on the performance detail page.

I can't find any reviews in the Globe or the Intelligencer, and frankly, I don't have any specific recollection of the new Williams piece, but of course, the other two are standards of the repertoire, so it should be worthwhile listening, beginning this evening at 8:00 p.m. Boston Time.

Enjoy!

BSO — 2018/04/07

This week the BSO is giving an all-Wagner program. The BSO performance detail page puts it like this:

Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde is a hymn to the intense spirituality that accompanies transcendent earthly love. Musically and operatically innovative, it remains a watershed in the history of music; to hear its music live is an unforgettable experience. Andris Nelsons leads an outstanding cast of singers-including the great German tenor Jonas Kaufmann (taking the role of Tristan for the very first time) and the acclaimed Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund-in Act II of the opera, in which the title characters come together under the spell of a love potion, only to be discovered by King Marke, Tristan's uncle and lord, to whom Isolde is betrothed. The concert opens with one of Wagner's few purely instrumental works still heard today, the Siegfried Idyll, which he composed in 1869 and had performed as a surprise birthday gift for his wife Cosima. The "Siegfried" of the title is the couple's son, born the previous June, though Wagner later incorporated some of the Idyll's music into the third of his Ring operas, Siegfried.

(Some emphasis added.)
See the performance detail page for the usual links to audio previews, program notes, and performer bios.

The reviews are lukewarm. The Globe likes Jonas Kaufmann's performance more than the Intelligencer does. Both praise the singers in the secondary roles of Brangäne and King Marke.

The broadcast and webstream over WCRB begin at 8:00 p.m. EDST, and the rebroadcast/stream will be at 8:00 on April 16. The rebroadcast on April 9 will be last week's concert of Mozart, Widmann (American premiere) and Strauss.)